Day 3 Rendevous with the Vavilov and Bears!

Day 3  Wed Aug 27

 

Winching fresh supplies aboard.

We wake today in the middle of Barrow Strait.  The ship is becalmed, cocooned in dense fog in a sea of mercury.  No horizon, no ice, no birds, no sound except the deep rumble of our idling engine.  We head up to the bridge to look at the GPS, and still no land is visible.  We resort to plotting our coordinates on the paper chart in the bridge, 74* 13 N, 89* 52 W  which puts us precisely in the centre of Barrow Strait.

The anticipated meeting with the Vavlilov has not taken place as planned at midnight, and is about to happen here, in the void.  Russian voices on the bridge range back and forth over the radio, our crew race to the gangway and suddenly out of the mist emerges a fleet of zodiacs, as if from Mars.  Pallets of boxed vegetables are winched aboard, nets bulging with luggage next, then a boatload of new personnel and guests.

The plan this morning is for a zodiac cruise past the bird cliffs of Prince Leopold Island, but yet again nature intervenes as a polar bear with two cubs are spotted on the ice just ahead.   As we manoeuvre towards them, the mom pounces into the water and emerges in an instant with a small seal.  The family feeds while we approach.  Stalking wildlife from a 300 ft. ship seems heavy handed, but these bears are hardly habituated to humans.  We are assured that they seldom encounter humans and sometimes curiosity will even draw them towards us.

We watch for an hour, spotting scopes, binoculars, cameras in hand, while mom and cubs devour the seal, leaving a bloody patch on the snow that attracts numerous birds.  One cub seems to have fed with particular abandon - his face, ears and paws are bright with blood.  Sated, they turn away and we trace our way back out of the ice towards the bird cliffs.



Mom and cubs, the remains of a seal on the heavier ice, and the Vavilov too.

 While we're underway special guests from the Vavilov are introduced:  John Geiger, head of the Canadian Geographic Society, and Andrew Prossin, CEO of One Ocean Expeditions.  We are treated to a slide show before they return to the Vavilov and their expedition heads down to Victoria Strait behind an ice breaker.  They have ten days to deploy all the high tech search equipment in the area where the Erebus and Terror were last seen, locked in ice.  John Geiger shows his slides of exhuming the Franklin graves on Beechey Island, and the compelling evidence that lead poisoning was a factor in the tragedy that ensued.

From 'Frozen in Time' by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

As they depart, more bears are spotted, and we nudge deeper into an ice pan to get a closer look.  Another mom and two cubs come into view, and shutters dance.  Again we turn to head onwards to our destination.

While underway the staff offer interpretive lectures.  I choose the history of the quest for the Arctic Grail, the North West Passage.  Katie Murray is a PHD student from Scotland with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Arctic exploration, and a bias towards John Rae I'm pleased to find.  A brilliant lecturer, she brings Franklin alive for us.

 

Prince Leopold Island

By now our original schedule is completely out the window.  Afternoon light is fading from the bird cliffs, but illuminating the ice flows beautifully, so we embark in Zodiacs for a predinner cruise.  Surrounded by kittiwakes, murres, fullmers, and whatnot we cruise beneath sheer 1000 foot sandstone cliffs.  The birds wheel and soar in the last of the sunlight, the sea glistens, the ice twinkles.  Beautiful!



 We arrive back up the gangway cold and happy, and are greeted by staff with cups of steaming coffee with great dollops of Kahlua.  A perfect reception if I ever saw one!  Dinner follows soon after, along with yet more bears just off our bow, in perfect light.  We flit between courses up to the deck, unable to resist more photo ops.  Finally we fall exhausted into bed at 11, to dream of ice bears and hot toddies.

Mon and two year old cubs in evening light. (Thanks to Norbert!)