The afternoon turned very foggy with plenty of ice about too so having pushed about two-thirds of the way up Yakutat Bay to Point Latouche and facing dense ice flows right across the entrance to Disenchantment Bay - the Hubbard Glacier sits at the apex of this bay - it was no surprise when the Captain came on the PA to say that we were turning back. Although the visibility had improved if we entered the ice and the fog descended it would be a very dangerous place to be.
A bit about the Hubbard though before I close this blog. It is the largest single, tidewater glacier in the world i.e. one that flows into a tidal seaway. Named by Gardiner Hubbard, the founder of The National Geographic Society in 1890, the glacier is 76 miles long, 6 miles wide and about 1200ft deep with a 400ft terminal wall. Its origin is in British Columbia, Canada. It is said you can see the face of the glacier from 30 miles away but not today! Neither could we see the peaks of the Wrangell -St. Elias Mountains - the world's tallest coastal mountain range with its pyramidical peak of Mt. St. Elias at 18010 ft.
The name Yakutat bay comes from the local Tlingit natives word "Yak'taa t" which mean "where the canoe rests". The first European to discover the bay was Vitus Bering in 1741. In 1791 an Italian explorer Alessandro Malaspina searching for the North West Passage in the upper reaches of Yakutat Bay was saddened to see a huge wall of ice that prevented him from continuing so he named the bay "Disenchantment Bay" very appropriately named even for today!
All facts and figures courtesy of Terry Breen the onboard lecturer from her book "Alaska's Inside Passage".
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