Tracy Arm Fjord Day 5

Quoting from the daily R.C. Cruise Compass; "Tracy Arm, the north arm of Holkam Bay, takes a general northerly direction for 9 miles, then turns eastward 13 miles to it's head, where two large glaciers, North and South Sawyer discharge into salt water. Traveling up Tracy Arm is like going back through geologic history.  The fjord's dramatic walls lose their vegetation until they become bare shining rock, shaped and ground smooth by ice.  In many places the mountains plunge vertically into the water, which is more than a thousand feet deep."

There was no way I could describe this experience....a new one for me, as we didn't go here last year....other than to say "AWESOME !!"  As you can imagine, the air was cold in here, I went up on deck and immediately went down to the cabin and put on a sweatshirt.  It was quite, breath taking and absolutely the most rugged but beautiful place I have ever been.  Even those of us up on the higher decks, were barely speaking...just looking...trying to take in all that we were seeing, the water was almost emerald green and the ice a light blue.   The ships captain did make an announcement that he couldn't take the ship in as far as he wanted to because of the amount of ice floating. Some of the crew went out in a life boat and gatherd up a hunk of ice to be brought to the ship for viewing up close. Then he quietly &  slowly turned the ship around in the channel and slowly we floated out of Tracy Arm.  I've included a link so you can see more pictures, showing different amounts of ice there.

Since the rest of the day was a day at sea, there were lots of ship board activities.  BINGO for one.  Now, I'm not a BINGO addict.  I've been to BINGO only once with a friend from work.  MyBINGO experience is limited to playing it at home when I was a kid and then later on playing it with my grandkids. I can't remember if this was my "BIG BINGO" day or not, but we played three different days and once I had all the right numbers and was able to yell "BINGO."  I had to share the prize, $270, so ended up with $137 of real money.  I know one day we played BINGO with friends Dennis & Darlene and new found friends Lanny and his wife, Larrie.   Thursday afternoon, the last afternoon on board, the big and final jackpot in the black-out game was over $5,000...won by one person and it wasn't me or anyone I know.   The staff member who called BINGO was a great guy, with a fantastic sense of humor, who had us all laughing and made the game so much fun.  I don't have a clue how you spell his entire name but he called himself "Moe" for short. He's from Fiji and has one of those very long Pacific Islander names. 

I think the 7pm entertainment tonight was without a doubt one of the best, also.  The show started with a female singer, Marlise.   She had a lovely voice and was a very pretty woman.   She opened for Paul Boland, called "The Man of 1000 Voices."  He is a singer/impressionist.  He was fantastic and put on a delightful show.  During his act, he called for a child out of the audience and a little girl raised her hand, so he brought her on stage and kneeling behind her, using a Kermit the Frog puppet and singing in Kermits voice.  When the show was over, the entertainment director called Marlise back for a curtain call, as well as Paul Boland and then the little girl came up on the stage and he said "Ladies & gentleman I present the Paul Boland family."   If you go to his website (link provided) you can actually click on different links and hear his impressions of different people.

Another singer we enjoyed was Sherri Cafaro.  She has a beautiful voice and plays the piano while she sings. She performed often at the beautiful white grand piano in the Centurm.  I think I may get a couple of her CD's for Christmas gifts which can be ordered from her website.

Tonight after dinner and all the activites we set our watches forward one hour as the next day we would wake up in the Pacific Time Zone.