This morning’s alarm was perhaps less pleasing that the ring tones on our phones – at 0700, National Geographic Endurance resumed her progress through the field of sea ice we found upon exiting Bellot Strait on its west side. The ship shakes, lurches, and shivers as she chews through the two-foot-thick ice floes on our way south along Boothia Peninsula, and still her stability is so impressive. Rather few things have fallen off our desks! Fog was our accompaniment this morning; we could only see a few hundred meters around us.
After breakfast, Sue Forbes, certified photo instructor, led a workshop on the Essentials of Photography, and most of the photo examples illustrating her tips were taken on her various voyages in the Arctic. Sue recommended checking the four corners of the photo before clicking the button to make sure you are including and excluding exactly what you want from the shot.
Shortly before lunch, the fog started to lift. After lunch, we spotted two bears, one of which had two cubs with her. She was quite far from the ship, so we delighted in taking pictures of the lone bear closer to us as it walked and, once in a while, jumped in the water to swim between ice floes.
In the afternoon, Serguei Ponomarenko taught us to read arctic landscapes. He showed us examples of landforms formed by alpine and continental glaciers, as well as features caused by the permanently frozen land beneath us. We have already spotted some of these on our hikes, like frost boils and moraines!
