July 7th – Taku Harbour to Endicott Arm

Mike & Betty waiting for some Calving

Not To Be disappointed, a rather large chunk falls off

A view from afar to give you some depth of the size of Calving

The Davisons playing in a large Bergie Bit

One of the Larger Breaks in the Glacier we witnessed

The noise is tremendous when the glacier Calves

Receding Glacier "Sum Dum Glacier" (name is real)

Shaman Playing in the Bergs

Oceanaire playing Hide & Seek

Our First Look at "Dawes Glacier"

Bad Kids playing in the bergs

"I'll get the ice for Martinis"

"Nice Hat"

Oceanaire Hiding in the Bergs

A flipped Berg with a Bird

Bergs

Posing beside Bergs

Shaman Nestling up to a berg

"I Can touch it"

Pull out time is 5:00 am. Enroute through our passage in Endicott Arm, we take big boat shots with the Ice Bergs. There are more humpback whales in the Arm than the outside straight, with plumes of “Whale Smoke” (CJ’s terminology) shooting up all around us. After dodging Ice Bergs for about 8 miles, we arrive at 11:00 am to “Fords Terror” well inside Endicott Arm. The anchorage we have chosen is a bay behind a big sand bar at the entrance to Fords Terror and we hope we are well protected from the floating ice bergs. Hopefully we do not have to fend off ice during the night. The only incident is around 3:00 am when Mike and I wake up to a really loud twang, we get dressed, go outside and look around the boat and all seems clear, it happens again when we go back to bed. We are puzzled, but do not worry as we do not see any Ice Bergs. With our morning coffee, we notice that the smaller ice bergs are swirling around the perimeter of the bay and a couple of small “Bergie Bits” get caught up on our stern line. We surmise that this is what the noise was in the middle of the night. Turns out our stern line is tight enough to be played as a Bergie Guitar.
We load up the dinghies and first go exploring around the bay where we are anchored. We clown around with our dinghys driving in and out of a beached Iceberg and chip off some ice to celebrate Dave’s 66th birthday. Within 20 minutes of leaving this iceberg, it has collapsed. Perhaps we had better listen to the advice in the books and stay away from these bergs, better yet, we are blaming Wayne for chipping off some ice for the imminent collapse of the Berg. We dinghy into “Ford’s Terror” and are not the least bit terrorized until we go to come out and the tide is against us and in order to get out, you must go a high speed against the current while dodging clear, hard to see Bergie Bits. We reload our dinghy’s with supplies (this is a high speed gunkhole), get out our rain gear and head the 11 miles to Dawes Glacier by dinghy. It’s a beautiful ride in and we spend about an hour ½ at the front of the glacier watching it calve. In hindsight, we should have left the dog on the boat, I don’t think Kobi could have been any more terrified from the noise coming off of the glacier. The sound of the cracking Ice, and the dynamite sounding crashes when the ice falls into the water is pretty loud, I think that Kobi thought it was the 4th of July all over again. We were able to get some tremendous footage both on film and in video of the crashing of ice. Pretty Awesome sight! While we are in there, a pocket cruise ship from “National Geographic” has come into the glacial bay and is letting off all of its passengers in large rubber tenders and they are getting lectures on the glacier and all that is happening while we are in there. The swell from the falling ice from the glacier is long and low and it causes quite a current inside the bay. On our way back to the big boats, it is pelting with rain and we all feel like we were sandblasted and popsiclized (air temp is around 40 degrees farenheit) A great dinner on Sambuca and off to bed early. We managed to cram 2 full days into one despite ourselves!