Exceptional Day at Sea

Two Ice Breakrs Off the Side of the Bow

A few days ago the Capt announced that we were headed into quite a bit of ice, a lot more than they had experienced last year. He requested a Canadian Coast Guard ship to accompany us thru the area. With that ship and our Shackleton ice breaker, they would be able to crush a larger path for us. A German expedition ship, with 150 passengers, requested to join us so we were a convoy of 4 ships going thru the ice. At about 10 am the Capt made the first bear announcement, which I already wrote about. There was another a couple of hours later, then another after that. With each announcement I added clothes that I put on before going out, it was cold! Unfortunately we were quite a ways away from the bears so no more great shots. 


Polar Bear on Ice

We were sitting at dinner and I mentioned that they were probably announcing bear sightings but not in the dining room. Our table mate said that she had seen the ice breakers break thru a lot of ice in the afternoon when I was taking a nap. I wanted to see that and could see thru the windows that we were approaching a lot of ice so after I had my entree (I never order appetizers so have my entree first), I raced to our room to get my camera and jacket. And I was right, they had seen a mother bear with 2 cubs and not announced it in the dining room. They were currently following another bear so I went up to the lounge on 12 to watch on a special camera they have set up there, as well as to go outside for pictures. It was cool to have the 2 ice breakers in front of us. We were going thru a lot of ice. The ship shuddered every time we hit a large piece. 

German Ship With Canadian Coast Guard

I noticed that the German ship was off to the side behind us, surrounded by ice. They had not followed us but rather gone off to follow a bear (everyone's assumption onboard) and gotten stuck. The Canadian ship went back to free them....twice! It was a pretty exciting day navigating thru the ice and watching out for polar bears. The ship saw 7 bears in all, we saw 4 of those. 

This morning we went thru a narrow straight. We were supposed to go thru at 6 am so I would never have seen it. Apparently a cargo ship was coming thru from the other direction so we had to wait for them to get through first. They became stuck in ice so the Canadian ice breaker went to free them before leading us through. Our Capt announced later today that he was going to take a nap. It had been a stressful 48 hours navigating thru the ice, he was glad we were through. 


Bow of Crystal Serenity going thru ice

They announced more Unexpected Adventures for tomorrow. When we signed up it was unclear if we could do 2 zodiac adventures or just one. We also did not know if we could do the zodiac and the high speed boat. They showed what we will be doing during the adventures in the daily recap. The zodiacs are actually landing on Beechy Island where some of the Franklin crew are buried. Franklin was the first to discover the northwest passage in 1847 but never made it back to England to tell about it. Very exciting that we will see the graves, we hoped. We went to the excursions desk to clarify. They said we are high on the list so should get tickets to both the zodiac and boat but no guarantee that they will be at different times. We might have to return a set. Fortunately we lucked out and received tickets for the zodiac in the morning, boat in the afternoon. We are passing by islands this evening and there is snow on them. It is going to be very cold but worth the extra bundling up. We are looking forward to tomorrow!!!

Comments

  1. janetSeptember 5, 2017 at 1:28 PM

    That's quit an adventure! Glad you got through the ice and saw some bears. I'm really enjoying your posts.

    ReplyDelete

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