Baffin Bay Crossing: Day 2

I wrote about our bear encounter out of sequence, so back to today’s story.

Waking up to the banging and clanging as Ultramarine went through a band of sea ice had me jumping out of bed to enjoy the experience … likely our last time being in the ice on this expedition. It made taking a break to go to breakfast at. 7:30a difficult, but luckily I did or I might have missed our brief bear encounter.

There was a bit more ice after we saw the bear, but by 9:00a it was all left behind. Clear waters ahead for Ultramarine to speed up in order to get to Kangerlussuaq on time.

The rest of the day was filled with lectures — Jodie spoke about “Glaciers as Sculptors;” Wayne talked about the effects of climate change in the polar regions and the “Inuit Adaptations” to these changes; Adrian’s topic was “Feathers” … the small miracle that is the feather.

There was a bit of fun, too … Colin hosted a Greenlandic beer tasting in the late afternoon.

Our education continued with mini-lectures during the recap & briefing — Sam regaled us with tidbits about the top predator of the Arctic … the polar bear; Samantha talked about Arctic governance … underlining the fact that although there are a number of countries that have committed to supporting search and rescue operations in these latitudes, only one country has the wherewithal to actually conduct such activities … Russia.

One last day at sea awaits us tomorrow.Read more