September 14, 2025
The captain warned us.
It is 4:00 in the morning. Our cabin is dark except for the soft glow of my laptop with the display set to “nighttime” mode so that Cathy, snoozing a few feet away, may continue to do so for a few more hours.
The room is rocking. I can hear the sounds of the hangers in the closet as they clatter against one another with the motion of the ship. The walls of Ol’ Lizzy creak and groan. The wind and rain beat against her glass.
Looking out, I see only two shades of dark blue separated by a vague horizontal line. Above, slightly grayer than below, is the sky. Below, a deep dark blue, is the sea where bright white bursts of spray and foam flash and recede like fireworks.
“What the hell,” I think as I don my REI issued waterproof jacket, intending to step out onto the deck to experience a storm at sea. But as I turn the handle on the door, and press out against the glass, it won’t budge. I try again. Maybe an inch and then it pushes me back, like some cosmic pressure lock has been triggered. For the life of me, I can only get it to move an inch or two before the force of the wind slams it shut.
The captain warned us.
An atmospheric low is overtaking us from the west. Because of it, he has made the unfortunate judgment call to bypass the Endicott Arm where we had hoped to see glaciers calve and, instead, head out to open sea.
The captain warned the roughest going would arrive near 6:00.
I stagger back to my desk in my raincoat and flannel jammy pants. Between my Parky’s, chronic insomnia, and the rough water of the Hecate Strait, I see my silhouette in the mirror, smile, and begin to hum the old sea shanty, “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?”
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Hey, hey and up she rises.
Hey, hey and up she rises.
Hey, hey and up she rises,
Early in thy morning.
I sit down to write. Dawn is approaching, Cathy is stirring, and I am behind on this, my own sea shanty. I must find a way to describe what can’t be captured in words. I have tried now for hours and can’t find a way to do justice to the quiet grandeur of Glacier Bay.
In this era when we all, regardless of your political persuasion, might agree that our government has become dysfunctional, it is good to visit a National Park. They are the only things we seem to do right.
As we pass by Lemesurier Island on our starboard side, then pivot north around Point Carolus, through the Sitakahday Narrows, a young woman’s voice comes over the intercom. She is a U.S. Park Service Ranger born and raised in Michigan who has come aboard to explain what we are seeing.
She invites us to consider the concept of remoteness and reminds us that we are entering the most remote park in the National Park System. A park that can be reached only by boat or plane. A place the American people, in a rare departure from self-centered myopia, have set aside, the only satisfaction from which will be knowing it exists.
She reminds us that all things change. That both the good and the bad will one day pass, and one day return. Like glaciers, time moves slowly, but it moves. The glaciers we see today will not appear the same tomorrow. They will have calved in 24 houra and appear much different to the two cruise ships per day scheduled to follow us
She speaks simply but eloquently of her little sister back in Michigan who she hopes to one day bring to the Park. She asks each of stop and think of who in our lives might inspire us to look to the future and on whose behalf we might join in efforts to preserve our parks.
Throughout the day, Cathy and I found ourselves speaking in hushed tones or not speaking at all. It seems disrespectful to raise your voice in a place so majestic.
Those who know me know I think of the Yosemite Valley as a holy place, if in fact such places exist. I don’t say it lightly when I say that Glacier Bay has surpassed Yosemite as the most beautiful place I have ever been.
As we left Glacier Bay today, the Park Ranger bid us all a safe trip home and climbed aboard a Park Service Boat to take her back to the Ranger Station. A young lady out in the middle of nowhere, working for a pittance, as eloquent as any politician or CEO might hope to be, fighting for what she believes with all her heart is worth fighting for.
If you zoom in, you can see her waiving and acknowledging the applause and shouted “thank you’s” from many, many passengers along the starboard side.
It was very moving.
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 