Morning options were aborted as the swell was too much. First we abandoned the search for polar bears on the north coast of the island and the ship moved on to the west to try to seek shelter and launch operations to see the large populations of seabirds nesting on the sheer limestone cliffs. The weather continued to deteriorate and the wind is now up to 40 plus knots. Plus rain. So, now we are going south to see if it gets any better down there.

In a half hour Robin Aiello is putting on a polar bear lecture so I guess we will see them from the warmth and comfort of the theater.

thanks for the bears

Marc, no news on the Bremen or Hanseatic yet, but we had lunch with Chris who said a ship one of his friends is on was cleared into Canada at Pond Inlet (north end of Baffin Island), but unable to go further due to ice conditions. Will talk to Robin about what he knows.

Leslie, I LOVE LOVE LOVE your polar bear pictures ! Sounds like a wonderful trip you're on except for the winds you encountered.

Yesterday we had a driving rain, big swells and 40 knot winds so we
were unable to go ashore or on Zodiac rides searching for polar bears
in Aptatok island. We were entertained by a series of lectures and a
couple of documentaries in between meals.

Today was a beautiful sunny day and we sent the morning in a series of
fjords and landed for hiking options, accompanied by our gun toting
bear guides. Many people abandoned their red parkas along the way, and
donned their mosquito netting hoods. Although we didn't see any
caribou, we did come across a set of teeth and antlers.

Loving all the excellent posts and photos!

Leslie and Brad,
You truly are explorers! This whole blog is just fascinating, to observe from afar! Thanks so much!

Today we anchored off of Cape Dorset, the most famous Inuit art village in northern Canada. About 1,000 people live here. We zodiac'd ashore in the morning for a tour around town, which mainly consisted of places to buy carvings, although we did have a short print making demonstration.

After lunch two ladies came on board for a short throat singing performance and then we went ashore again to the Mallikjuag Territorial park on anther side of the bay to hike and visit archaeological sites and old stone structures, dating back 3,000 years. Passengers self selected groups depending on how long they wanted to hike which determined which sites they saw.

How strenuous/challenging are the hikes, Leslie? I can walk all day but climbing, not so much. The pictures are great as usual. No hat or gloves for you though, so not too cold? We leave in 4 more days!!!
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Helen

Helen, Canada has been the coldest so far. Today was about 34 in the morning, probably around 40 this afternoon. If you are getting any kind of exercise you get pretty warm in those parkas, but many of the zodiac rides to shore have been long and chilly as the ship has to anchor quite a long way from the landing sites due to changing tide and lack of depth information in some places.

The hikes we have been on have been strenuous, but mainly because of the rocky uneven terrain. They offer different options in length and duration. Yesterday's was a lot of up, maybe 750' elebation gain, and through boggy areas and clambering up over boulders. Today the change in tide affected our landing and we ended up in a slippery rocky, kelp covered spot. The hike was predominantly on rocks and scree. If you have hiking poles I would bring them.

Will pack the hiking poles for me. George is too stubborn to use them. Thanks, Leslie.

A face only a mother could love...

Today was walrus day. The morning activity off Bencas Island was aborted as we had 30 knot winds and lots of swell. So we sailed on a few more hours towards our 2nd destination, Walrus Island, fervently hoping that today would not become another sea day. The weather calmed a slight bit and the expedition staff and platform crew did an amazing job getting the zodiacs down and guests loaded without incident.

We were in the 2nd group, and although it was quite choppy, the sun came out and we were all dazzled on our approach to the small island by the sight of about 250 walrus hauled up on the rocks. We spent about an hour and a half observing them. The bulk were in one big group, but there were a few groups of outliers further down the coast which allowed us to literally bump into the rocky shoreline to get a closer look at them.

It looks like they had their tusks whitened!

Fantastic! This made my day, thanks so much Leslie.
----------------------
Helen

And one more wider shot

What fatties! Can't wait to see them. Went to 2 sporting goods stores today, and neither had Mosquitos hoods. One had an entire body suit minus the hood, but we don't need that, just the hood. I have one other place to check, but if no luck will have to wait till in Canada. I am thinking one might be able to find them in Churchill. Have to work 10 plus hrs the next 2 days to get away, so no time for running all over town shopping.

Rachel,I went to Big 5 Sporting Goods yesterday and got them. Do you have that near you?
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Helen

Leslie, oh my, this is a trip that seems to be tailor-made for you and Brad!

You two are the most adventurous I've had the personal pleasure to meet in all my travels, well, that is, up there in the league of Anne and Gary. Want you to know, I have enjoyed every step along the way, every photo, and every post. I can't even even imagine the amount of time it takes for you to upload those pictures, let alone compose the commentary that makes me feel like I'm there!

Such a help for fellow LCT'ers who will be in the area soon! Rachel and Helen, we have big expectations from you both!

No big five near here. I went to the two academy stores without luck. There is a bass pro shop in broken arrow which might have what I am looking for, but I don't know if I will have time to go there tomorrow or Friday. We leave early Sat am.

Rachel - If we see you at the airport in Churchill I will hand off the hoods. So far I have not put it on, but many have. Brad was bothered by the bugs 2 days ago at Douglas Harbor, but not me. There were no bugs yesterday in Cape Dorset. You may be ok w/o them.

The naturalists took photos today and stitched them together and estimate that 416 walrus were on the island!

Rachel, No worries, due to circumstances too boring to discuss I now have 2 extra nets.
Will see you onboard and hand off.

Leslie, I do hope there are some walrus left when we get there. Are you heading to the Beluga whales now?

Olivia I will do my best but Posting pix seems to really tax the limits of my intelligence! Rachel may be your best hope for pictures. But I will try to at least post some commentary.
------------------------
Helen

Haha, didn't see your posts today, Leslie and Helen, but found the hoods at this hole in the wall kind of junk store that is by the pet store where I had to run by today to get supplies for the dog and cat while my son is taking care of them. The place has mostly just random junk, but had mosquito hoods.

Have to start packing!

I am clueless regarding posting pics.

I am going to pack tonight since I need to work all day tomorrow and our flight is out of LAX at 8:15 Saturday morning. At least the Saturday morning traffic should not be too bad. Of course this is Los Angeles, so "bad" traffic is pretty relative.
-----------------------
Helen

It did occur to me that I could just leave them onboard for you Rachel! Do either of you want our Amex Dom Perignom? I got the Amex shipboard credit straightened out a couple of days ago so the bottle just arrived and I am not going to drink it.

Sea day today, Arviat tomorrow. We are in the early group unfortunately, with a 7:30 AM departure. The schedule has been moved forward as we need to arrive at the pilot for Churchill by 3:30 AM Saturday in order to be ble to dock. Seas are rocky right now, wind predicted to be 20 plus knots tomorrw and it will be a 4 mile zodiac ride ashore. And we all thought that 1 1/2 miles in choppy conditions were bad.

Beluga whales will be Saturday morning, Helen.

Wow, 4 mile zodiac ride. I told George he better not forget those waterproof pants of his, and he was like "why?"

I am definitely up for a bottle of Dom Perignon if you are giving it away. Even George, who makes fun of my liking champagne, enjoys that stuff.

Thanks, Leslie but I should be getting my own bottle of Dom and Jerry wont drink it so I am covered. I think I will need not only the waterproof pants but the bottle of Meclizine too for that long Zodiac ride if the seas have been that rough.

Fingers crossed for tons of Belugas!!

Hope to cross paths in Churchill.
----------------------
Helen

Rachel - send me your cabin number and I will take it to reception for you.

Today our destination a Arviat, an Inuit town on the western side of Hudson Bay. Known as Eskimo Point until 1989, Arviat has a population of about 2,300, the southernmost and third largest town in Nunavut. Like the other Inuit towns we have visited it is only reachable by water, air and snowmobile. Supplies and equipment come in via an annual sealift.

The weather forecast held; while sunny and around 50 degrees, it was quite windy with a lot of swell. We were in the first group to depart on the 4 mile zodiac ride to shore, which took about 45 minutes in the choppy conditions. Once on shore we broke into 3 smaller groups of about 15 for a tour around town with local guides. Our first stop was a family home for a visit with a cute older couple, full of stories of their lives, including meeting the queen! Then we walked to a recreation of an Inuit tent for a drum dance and explanation of how they lived in former days, then on to the visitors center/museum, a tourist souvenir shop and finally to the community center for a chance to buy locally made crafts. They typically harvest whale this time of year but the weather the past couple of days had prevented it so we didn't land on shore in the middle of that.

We were greeted back at the shore by expedition leader, Robin, who explained that the zodiacs had not yet left the ship with the 2nd group as sea conditions were pretty bad and they had yet to determine that it was safe to continue zodiac operations. We waited awhile until the captain decided it was unsafe to send anyone else ashore as winds were gusting up to 60km per hour. Evidently when they announced that the 2nd disembarkation was canceled they also announced that they would "do their best" to try to get those onshore back to the ship! Finally the zodiacs came back to get us but then we had to wait for the ship to move even further away so it could drift and create a bit of lee for unloading us before the boats were loaded. Quite a few local people came down to the shore to say goodbye to us. Unfortunately they also had to cancel the local musical performance; the community has some well known musicians.

The ride back the 4 plus miles was actually fairly quick as the wind was behind us. But upon arrival at the side gate the scene was pretty scary looking with the zodiac before us bobbing up and down 6 plus feet at the platform. The platform crew is quite competent (and strong) and somehow can "read" the swell and although it was not graceful and required a bit of courage we all managed to safely get off the zodiacs and up into the ship.

Leslie, we are in 318. George and Rachel Gibbs.

Today sounds pretty exciting. Sounds like I maybe do need the meclizine,which I never take. It is in the bag.

Thanks for the Dom in advance. We will enjoy.

Yikes, Leslie sounds a bit harrowing. We saw a bit of that trying to time the jump to the ship w the rising and falling of the zodiac when we were in Antarctica.

I would have been so disappointed to be that second group and not get ashore!
----------------------
Helen

A perfect last day with warm, sunny weather. Hundreds of beluga whales swimming amongst our zodiacs. A couple of polar bears hanging out on shore.

Richard Sidey, the photographer, showed his voyage idea before dinner.

Packing now so will post a few pix later or tomorrow.

Yesterday morning hundreds of beluga whales were cruising around in the bay right near the ship so we had lots of time to watch them over breakfast. Instead of larger regular whale watching boats the expedition staff launched the ship's zodiacs and we also had 6 zodiacs from a local tour company,mso we all were able to go at one time for a 2 1/2 hour whale watch, including the polar bear sighting on shore. The whales were quite curious ad friendly and swam around and under the zodiacs. A really spectacular morning!

those bears

Yesterday afternoon we had a tour of Churchill and its surrounding area.

Here are a couple of pix from the polar bear jail. When a bear comes too close to town they entice them into huge traps and put them in jail for awhile and then relocate them. Unfortunately we couldn't go in, but we were told that 4 bears were currently in residence.

Another polar bear shot plus some Canadian geese

We are back in Winnipeg after our charter flight. Spent a few minutes with Helen and Jerry and met Rachel and her husband as they came in on the incoming charter. Six of the expedition staff are changing over; there was quite a bit of meeting and greeting between incoming and outgoing staff as well as passengers who had sailed together before.

Luggage loading and unloading took awhile so we were late leaving Churchill and after arrival in Winnipeg's general aviation terminal it was quite awhile before the transfer to the regular airport got going. Probably some missed onward flights. Many, like us, are staying at airport hotels for flights tomorrow morning.

Thanks so m uch, Leslie, for the reports and pix of your awesome adventure! Safe travels home,

Thank you so much Leslie and brad for the lovely bottle of champagne. It was delivered and is waiting to be enjoyed on a sea day!