Murray Island and Cambridge Bay

I think the pattern of this cruise is now set - sail overnight and sometimes mornings, arrive at next landing site, landings undertaken, sail to next destination. No more sea days for a while at least. That’s okay - life on board is very relaxed. We did get to see a sunset last night but it was still fairly light all night and the sun was back up in the early hours of the morning. The food is good (too good really). We had an Asian buffet last night and it was excellent. The fare in the Fredheim restaurant is more burgers for lunch but they are doing national themed dinners- so far they have done Filipino, Italian and now they’re doing South American. In the bar, all classic cocktails are included as well as beer and wines. However, Sonya does make a better margarita but their negroni is very much up to standard.
Yesterday - Murray Island. Afternoon. This was another beach/wet landing which meant all wet gear. It’s a little unseasonably hot at the moment so wearing thick muck boots, waterproof trousers, life vests and wind proof jackets is rather uncomfortable and hot. The landing this time was to look at the arctic tundra. It was a rather long walk up a hill- I observed from the ship. I spoke to several people and while they saw a number of caribou antlers, there were not many flowers evident. We were sailing by 6.30pm.
Today we are in Cambridge Bay on the other side of Victoria Island to Ulukhaktok. Cambridge Bay is in a different province than Ulukhaktok- Nunavut whereas Ulukhaktok is in the Northwest Territories. It’s the largest stop for passenger and research vessels travelling through the Northwest Passage. It has a population of just over 1700 people, mainly Inuit. Apparently it was once considered for the capital of the province but it gets iced in over winter so was not suitable. No paved roads due to the permafrost means it has a bit of a frontier look to it. We are here for the whole day so there are numerous excursions for passengers but most were rather expensive eg hike Mount Pely €558, visit Ovayuk Territories park €558, cabin visit and culture €202, tour Research Vessel €87. All others were somewhere in between these figures. The free community walk took up to 3 hours. I stayed on board with a surprisingly large number of passengers.Leia mais