Fjord & Glacier on Crocker Island

Friday, September 2, 2016

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We lost another hour last night. Literally. For every other time change Peace has had the TV on a channel with the time change directions on it but not last night and we just missed the little notice on Reflections. So we didn’t change our clocks or watches or devices! The good news is that Clay got up early to go to the gym and noticed that his device time was different than the wall clocks. So he came back and woke me at what I thought was 6am but he promised me was 7am. We were just making the turn into Crocker Bay. The seas had been choppy all night and it was 30F with a strong wind. The sun was trying to break through mostly cloudy skies. We had received Unexpected Adventure tickets last night and were still trying to decide whether or not to go. Yesterday we definitely made the right decision to refuse the fast boat at Beechey Island. The landing by zodiac on shore would have been worth it but $40 more to stay offshore in bad weather was definitely a no go. Today we won the lottery for 2 $149 zodiac tickets with no landing. Yesterday at the recap & briefing Tim Soper had said we would go up to the end of a fjord at Crocker Bay and find 2 tidewater glaciers. The shore excursion letter we got did not say that. It said we would pause off Crocker Island and have a 1-hour zodiac adventure without landing at 10:20am. So, when Clay first woke me up and I saw the water and weather, I said he could go without me that I’d return my ticket. After my shower when we could see how far up the fjord we had come and the glaciers and no more white caps, I decided to go. I was glad I went even though besides the tidewater glacier and some birds, we only saw some glimpses of seals. No one has told us what kind of seals are here. No one has told us the name of the tidewater glacier though I feel sure it must be named. I’ve never seen a glacier that wasn’t named. Tim Soper said last night that this is the furthest north we will travel on this cruise. We are at 74 degrees 53.74’ N 80 degrees 33.51’ W according to the navigation map on channel 53 on the TV. I will hope that is accurate. The navigation map on deck 12 outside Palm Court this morning showed Serenity and Shackleton both atop the glacier or the land so that must be off a little!

Last night we also got an invitation to a Crystal Society cocktail and dance party at 5:15pm today. Since there is a 5pm expedition briefing & recap, we’ll do that instead. I don’t remember if I said but only a few nights into this cruise we received 1 Crystal Society pin and 2 very nice, luggage quality Crystal Cruises tote bags for being Crystal Society members. I don’t know if it’s a mistake or if it is because of this being a grand voyage or if Crystal always considers you a Society member after only 1 to 3 nights. Whatever it is, it seems at least one of us is considered a Society Member.

It is 3:40pm and we are still holding at the glacier’s edge. They have had zodiacs out since about 9am. They started sending out fast boats this afternoon and helicopters have been coming and going all day. A couple in Palm Court told me that they had returned 4:30pm helicopter tickets so I expect we’ll be here until dinner time. The sun was out for a few hours today but it left this afternoon. The ice fog/low snow cloud crept up the fjord off and on all day but now we are pretty socked in. They made a good choice if visibility is going to be low. We wondered if this glacier is actually the same as the one around the corner in the fjord, if they are attached to one another back on the land. It seems plausible but we have not been told if they are one or two or the same, etc.

I don’t know why I had never read or thought about the Canadian archipelago being full of fjords. But it is. These fjord landscapes are as, or more spectacular, than anything we’ve seen in Norway, Chile or Alaska. The very barrenness of the land being north of the tree line may make the scenery even more dramatic as well as the fact that our weather has been so moody and atmospheric. It has been spectacular. I highly recommend a North West Passage cruise of whatever ilk you can get booked!

We only have plans for dinner and recap/briefing tonight so I will close. Oh, there were 2 alerts we missed sailing in this morning, a polar bear and a beluga whale so we’d like to be wildlife watching on the way out, but I guess it will depend. If I can get Internet now, I’ll go ahead and post this.

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Blizzard at Beechey Island

Thursday, September 1, 2016

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We got tickets for a fast boat unexpected adventure at 11:55am today. The letter said that there would be no landing and we would just travel to shore side to view historical sites on Beechey Island from the boat. It was rough seas overnight and expected to be 30F and snowing. This adventure did not sound worth the trouble or especially the $169pp they would charge us. We had seen the photos of what there was to be seen here and the expedition expert only described seeing one animal here, a gyrfalcon. We have falcons in Raleigh! She had only seen one on multiple visits so it didn’t sound like there was anything else to see. Given that, as far as I know, they have only had one lecture that touched on the Franklin expedition and that is what the ruins and markers and graves on Beechey are all about, we didn’t have a special interest here and if we had seeing it from the high powered scopes in Palm Court was better than from a fast boat closer to shore. I heard someone in yoga say they had a 2pm excursion ticket so we are here for the day. It is another spectacular landscape and bay. We are surrounded on 3 sides with snow-dusted mountain tops which are bleak and desolate. They are blocking satellite reception! There are quite a few birds here.

So, we had Lido breakfast at 8am. Gentle yoga was at 9am so I was up in Palm Court by 8:30am to witness the dramatic sail in to Erebus & Terror Bay. It seems like it will be a quiet day today. We have 2 more sea days before Pond Inlet which we had expected to be our farthest North point. We are not that far from it so I expect at least 1 if not 2 more days of unexpected adventures. Stay tuned. Today we are at 74N 91W. This is the farthest North point on this cruise for those who got ashore today with zodiacs. I actually saw through the big scopes a person doing a polar plunge in the bay here! I saw them come out with bare arms and legs in a white t-shirt and black shorts and a person in a red coat vigorously toweling them down before the put on more clothes! I know they offered that in Nome and maybe one other port, but I guess this person was saving it for the Northernmost point of the cruise.

The captain just came on the speakers at 11:40am to say that whoever was flying a drone needed to bring it in immediate as they did not have his permission to launch a private drone and they were creating a hazardous situation with the helicopter(s) that they are operating today. Oops! I am thinking that if asked that the captain is not likely to authorize a private drone operation anyway and especially not now. Ten minutes later the captain came back on the speakers louder and irater. He was adding his address to people ashore. He pointed out that their flying over Shackleton, which is air traffic control for the helicopters had forced a grounding of helicopter excursions, was a safety hazard, was not permitted by himself or Crystal or in fact the Canadian Government. The drone pilot was not only inconveniencing people with helicopter tours ticketed but violating air safety, Crystal policy, Canadian law and the captain’s rules. He said it was completely unacceptable and he wanted that drone down now! I agree with all he said, but Crystal and ship security lapses allowed this to get this far. Clay and I cannot remember reading anything in precruise or ticketing packets forbidding drones, if it was written out in advance then it was clearly no enforced. We were under the impression that all bags were x-rayed before being brought aboard, so why was it allowed to be brought onboard. At lunch we overheard an officer and an expedition guide telling a table next door that they knew which passenger did it from shore and that his zodiac driver had given him up and said passenger was currently being hand gestures of throttling or choking with tongue out. I’m just saying there is responsibility to go around for this. I have to assume that it won’t be happening again though. The captain did not come back over the speakers with his regular noon status report. I assumed it was because he was managing his embolism. Clay assumed it was because he arranging to shoot the drone down out of the sky. Get me Stevie and a rifle! (Stevie is part of the expedition team and an Inuit hunter, whaler and fisherman. He is our extraordinary wildlife spotter.) In any event, it is 1:35pm now and the helicopters are back in the air. 

Last night the port side toilets stopped working. When we reported this once previously we were informed that they knew about it and to just wait for the flush to happen automatically. This time it was out for a lot longer. Clay eventually checked his tablet for e-alerts and found one posted about 10pm last night with news that a large object had been flushed somewhere on the port side and had broken the entire system on the port side and they were working on it through the night. Internet also went out last night and it is still out. I thought when I found it out this morning that it was a geographical issue but since it never came back today I went to the computer center and asked. He explained that a server broke sometime late yesterday and the IT team was still working to fix it. He explicitly said that there was Internet but without the server working passengers could not access it. So there’s that.

As the afternoon progressed, the bay got choppier and more covered with whitecaps. You could tell it was wind driven as the clouds lowered down the hilltops and slopes until finally the snow became visible onboard. The boat operations continued. It looks now as visibility worsens and the snow thickens blowing sideways that everyone should be back aboard by 4pm. Still no Internet and most of the TV channels are out as well. It is 3:40pm. Wind is 28 knots and snow is heavy as they are returning the last people from shore. Looking at the zodiacs bouncing on the Cineflex, I would say waves are 2 to 4 feet. The last zodiac of passengers that we saw had 20 people on it! It was the only zodiac out there not being bounced up out of the water at the wave tops. The folks who paid for a ticket ashore today are going to have tales of Arctic survival. Honestly, knowing the sad story of death and despair here, I feel I understand. I couldn’t have survived the day out there and it isn’t even winter. The Expedition recap & briefing is in an hour. It should be interesting to hear today’s report and what the plans are for tomorrow. I guess no one can say they weren’t warned the letter we got with our tickets last night predicted inclement weather. They had that right. There was about 5 minutes of sunshine between noon and one pm before everything went to hell.

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I will post this whenever we finally get the Internet server back up and running.

Cruising Bellot Strait & Icebergs!

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

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Clay was up early and on the treadmill today. I slept until 7am waking up shortly before he returned. I had turned on the TV and checked our position on the nav map and the bow cam and knew it was only 30F this morning. He announced there’d been snow showers and during Lido breakfast I’d seen  them too. Later they checked the weather on the TV to reflect 30F and snow showers. We are still in the Beaufort Sea somehow. I am not sure exactly when it changes to the Atlantic. We have been sitting at 3 to 5 knots for an hour or so outside the entrance to the narrow Bellot Strait. This is the route they told us yesterday they were hoping to use if it was clear of ice. It is 10am and they have just started up the Cineflex and have shown several zodiacs in the water entering the cut. I don’t know if we are conducting some zodiac unexpected adventures today or if those are just scouts from Shackleton to check the strait. Tim Soper said yesterday that they would check the channel by helicopter so I don’t know. It seemed like more zodiacs than would be required to just check the passage.

The Bellot Strait is 25km long and at its narrowest 1km wide. The slopes rise to 450m on the north shore and 750m on the south. It separates Boothia Peninsula from Somerset Island.

The captain just made an announcement that our first slow down this morning was at a wildlife viewing point but there was an expedition ship already anchored there doing zodiac excursions so out of courtesy he sailed on by. Plus he said they did not spot any wildlife so felt it best to keep sailing anyway. He said Shackleton had sent 4 zodiacs ahead into the Bellot Strait for photography purposes and if conditions were right they would launch a helicopter for photography once in the strait. The cineflex has been showing big brown moving lumps on the slopes ahead. I guess he has the camera as focused as possible but I assumed I was looking at ATVs. Then Clay’s devices started pinging and the e-alerts were that they were muskox! The captain also announced that and that our scenic sail through the Bellot should begin about 11am and we should be clear of Magpie Rock on the east side sometime after noon.

It is an overcast day again. Like the last 2 with intermittent showers and low cloud but today with snow showers instead of sprinkles or rain. It is very atmospherically scenic. On that note, there was a lot of concern prior to this cruise about the starboard side cabins being preferable for views. We have not found that to be true here on the port side. From time to time, land is closer on one side than the other but when no land is visible that is true on both sides. The captain has done a good job when sightseeing, like yesterday with the polar bears, to turn the ship so both sides eventually have the same or similar views. Given what I know now, I would actually pick the port side as being the better views. Also, I would not worry about taking one of the truncated 2-week long expedition cruises. I enjoyed seeing Nome and the 2 port stops in the Alaskan archipelago but there was some rough sailing in the Bering Sea and Bering Strait that was not scenic sailing before we reached Ulukhaktok. There are a lot of North West Passage cruises that we looked at that go from Greenland to Coppermine or reverse and I worried about missing most of the passage that way. It seems that from a sailing perspective this Canadian archipelago section is considered the North West Passage itself and since it is also the scenic part, now I see the sense in the shorter expedition cruises that are mostly offered. In hindsight, I wouldn’t hesitate to book one if that was what was available to me. That being said, Crystal has done an amazing job. I can only imagine that when they get their 200-passenger ice class yacht and do the NWP again that it will be absolutely awesome. We had been hesitant to try Crystal because of the large size, large number of passengers, fixed seating and formal nights. In other words, we felt Crystal was known for all the things we dislike about cruising. But we have mostly experience what we do like about our favorite lines and have ignored the rest. We were unable to get early dining, so went on the reservation only dining and while it was a bit of a bother to make 30+ dinner reservations it has not felt like fixed dining even though we are fixed by our reservations and always seated in more or less the same spot with the same waiters. That is another thing that has been a pleasant surprise on Crystal. We have always praised RSSC for knowing our names within days. We attributed the welcoming, familiar nature of the cruise experience to the small size but by day 2 aboard Serenity our cabin stewardess, every waiter we’ve had, every headwaiter and maître d’ knew us by name. It was surprising but in a good way. Well done, Crystal.

Gotta go, polar alert just received! Gotta move laundry to dryer soon too. More later. Latest alert is polar mom & cub coming up on port side. I am back at the cabin window with binoculars! Still not on Cineflex either. Good news is Cineflex is viewable in the laundry room as well! The captain just announced that the land we are pssing on starboard side is Point Senate (sounded like Senate, I don’t know how it is actually spelled). He says it is the Northernmost point on the North American continent. We are at 72N 94W. The clouds have lifted and sunlight and blue skies are visible. The hill or mountain tops are snow dusted. E-alert for narwhal a mile ahead. I am still doing laundry and no polar bears ever appeared on Cineflex either so it isn’t just me missing it. Hopefully Clay is out getting some photos. I don’t know why he decided laundry couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning! As far as I can tell the Cineflex never found the narwhal either. The landscape is spectacular though! I’ve seen the helicopter up, so hopefully the team will have some photos for us anyway.

Clay only got landscape photos with some birds and some blurry-looking boulders that were actually muskox. The captain said during his noon announcement that he didn’t see narwhal either. He said when Shackleton was ready we would set sail for Beechey Island by morning. The plan is unexpected adventures off Beechey Island about 10am on 9/1/2016. We sat around once we reached deep water at the east end of Bellot Strait. We were waiting for Shackleton to reload all the zodiacs and helicopter, plus they are slower than us so they always need a head start. While we were waiting we went up to a packed deck 12 for lunch. The sun was bright and everyone had an appetite. We checked every table through Tastes, Trident Grill and Lido before finding an empty table. I was craving pizza. I ordered it at Tastes and picked it up and carried it to Lido where Clay was eating. We both had desserts there. Right after we finished lunch the captain was back on the speakers with another announcement that they could just make out something large on the horizon ahead and it was visible on radar. He hoped it was a really big iceberg. Our first official iceberg of the trip. We left the Shackleton to finish packing up and we set off for the horizon. There were actually 2 great icebergs when we got to them about an hour and a half later. They both seemed to be traveling west. The tall one was traveling faster than the flat one, so I guess it was pretty lucky that we arrived when they were side by side. The captain said these icebergs had probably broken off from Greenland last year and drifted here. The sun is still shining brightly and the skies are bright blue and partly cloudy. It hasn’t warmed up today like it has the past several days.

We have nothing planned the rest of the day except for the recap & briefing followed by dinner. We have a DVD. So if we have Internet, I’ll post this now.

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Ice Bears!

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

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Well, we knew with the time change that it would be a short night. So, I planned to sleep in and have breakfast at 8am and gentle yoga at 9am and maybe chair yoga at 10:15am. Serenity had other plans. Clay said sometime after midnight he noticed the message light on the phone had started flashing but he didn’t want to wake me by turning a light on to work the phone. When I got up to pee about 4:20am, he checked the message. We had won the lottery of unscheduled adventures. We had tickets outside our door for an 8:15am zodiac excursion in ice. We decided we’d go and hope for more than just ice for $149pp plus the lost sleep and disrupted breakfast. At 6:30am we both got up again after we received an e-alert for sea ice. We showered, dressed and went to Bistro for coffee and pastries. Back to the cabin to finish gearing up. Since we wouldn’t be going ashore, we didn’t need boats but at 34F and staying in the zodiac for our scheduled hour, it would be cold. We both wore our enormous parkas today. They definitely kept us warm. We were really lucky with our draw today! Shortly after our 2^nd group of zodiacs headed out we received a radio call of where to head and to report what we saw. We saw a polar bear! He was a most cooperative bear and sat on a large ice berg for over 3 hours. He’d get up and walk from one end to the other and then sit or lie down again, but he didn’t jump in and swim away. We parked about a football field away from him and sat and just watched him for about 20 minutes. What a relief! After no polar bears in Svalbard last summer, I was worried about spending this much money again to not see any. So we got lucky and got our trip in with perfect timing. We left him with time to go look at other sea ice and to hunt for the numerous seals we kept seeing around. We found an ice berg with seal poop on it but we didn’t get a good look at any seals. Just random heads popping up and down at a distance. While we were parked and ice bear watching, a zodiac with 2 big urns and a number of crew approached behind us and offered hot chocolate. A nice touch!

Back onboard, we stripped out of the heavy gear and dressed for our first late breakfast at Tastes about 10am. They have some different food than the dining room or Lido. For example, they had blintzes which I had not seen elsewhere. I had chocolate chip pancakes and Clay had fried eggs. We crossed the pool deck and went to Palm Court to check things out. Before leaving the cabin, we had the TV on 82 and had seen the Cineflex view of the polar bear. Evidently they had lost track of him. We waited for a turn on the big mounted binoculars but couldn’t find him. They were doing knitting on one side and cross stitch on the other. The sample cross stitch kits were out on display on a counter and Clay picked one he’d like to try as a tablet cover. He asked me to ask for it. I did and she had me sign for it before asking if I had already gotten one. I pointed out the one I am working on now and a little over half finished. She told me when I have finished it that if I bring it to her, then she will give me the one Clay picked out. The pressure is on now! According to the navigation map outside the Palm Court, we are just port side of the channel in Vitoria Strait. There is a kind of bay there on the east side of Victoria Island. We are at 69N 110W. Oh, while we were having breakfast, Clay checked his tablet and while we were out bear watching there were 2 e-alerts sent out about the polar bear. Hopefully everyone got to at least see it on Cineflex.

We came back to the cabin and brushed our teeth and Clay got some photos uploaded and I cross stitched while watching the Cineflex. At one point, the camera panned around until there was what appeared to be a white cruise ship with a reddish funnel in the distance. He did stay on it or display it clearly enough to tell what ship it was.

There is an Asian themed lunch today. Clay says there is nothing for me for dinner tonight again. Not to worry, I could probably live off my own body fat for months! Clay found the day’s movie channel schedule on the TV and said there are 2 we can watch this afternoon. We still have the DVD for this evening. We have no other plans today except the recap at 5pm before dinner.

The orange-funneled white cruise ship is back and Clay has ventured out to see if he can spot it again. You mostly can’t tell where that Cineflex is pointed. It is too bad they didn’t send their aerial photography drone out again today. Clay says the other ship is approaching from forward on the starboard side. If we sit here long enough, we may be able to read it. The captain’s noon announcement today did not come through the TV and by the time we figured that out and got the door to the hall open we had missed most of it. He did say we’d stay here at least another hour. The orange funneled white cruise ship had dark blue characters on it but it was beyond Shackleton and we couldn't read it. We learned later that it was the Bremen.

So, the unexpected adventures today were only by zodiac. When we requested them, we could choose kayak, helicopter, fast boat or zodiac. We chose only zodiac and fast boat. It sounded this morning like they will do 4 more days of unexpected adventures before Pond Inlet. We’ll see.

This afternoon we started watching a movie only to learn there were a lot of polar bears in ice in front of us. We spent at least the next 2 hours slowly turning the ship to see them all as we drifted and the ice drifted. It was amazing once we could get enough clothes on to stay out there. We saw at least 3 individual bears on ice or swimming and sometimes one of each. But the most amazing thing was a mother with 2 cubs swimming and then standing, walking, hugging, snuggling on the ice for hours! The last thing we saw was a polar bear with a dead seal bloodied all over the ice. About 4 pm the captain came on the intercom and announced that the teams' plan from 24 hours earlier had been successful beyond their dreams and it was time for us to get underway again. It was a great day! Ice Bears!

I want to say that even though I don't like requiring everyone who wants viewing opportunity e-alerts instead of say shipwide announcements, the team has done a good job with them. If you're willing to always carry a phone or tablet, the e-alerts will keep you informed in a fairly timely manner.

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Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada

Monday, August 29, 2016

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I am sorry to report that there are no photos today as Clay dropped his camera going ashore from the zodiac. He had more than one camera, so he’ll hopefully carry on a bit more carefully but he only took one camera ashore with him today. With the zodiacs, you get one ride each direction with a tour ticket and so he couldn’t just come back and get another camera and start again. So no Cambridge Bay photos.

We were both awakened by the alarm at 6:45am today. We had a quick breakfast at Lido Buffet and then geared up in the cabin for the trip ashore. The zodiac tendering was running ahead of schedule today with low wind and very calm water. It was 41F when we woke up and even though it was overcast all day with a random rain shower, it was warmer and without the wind felt warmer still. We are in the Dease Strait. It is narrow and shallow. It is the place that stymied most of the early attempts at a North West Passage. In modern times, it makes Cambridge Bay rather a North West Passage crossroads or midpoint. Whereas Ulukhaktok had under 500 people, Cambridge Bay has over 1500. So, we were off and loading a zodiac by 8:45am. We had a bit of a wait for a shuttle ride to town. There were people on the beach offering hot drinks and Bannock. I don’t remember writing about Bannock. We were offered it on the beach of Ulukhaktok too. We took some there. It was not freshly fried, but Bannock is a kind of fry bread. Ours was a lump, but we saw some today and then that were doughnut-shaped. Ours was rock hard and difficult to chew and swallow. I expect it is more palatable fresh and hot and it may also be an acquired taste. We didn’t give it a 2^nd chance. We were in town before 10am. We were dropped at the school, but walked on down to the main street and through town. Our shuttle bus driver pointed out an arctic hare on the other side of the bus on the way in. We didn’t see it and he didn’t stop. We saw a lot of birds today. The bus driver recommended a walk through town to the Arctic Coast Visitor’s Center and then along the water front to look for the Arctic Char which he said were running like salmon and to see the remains of Amundson’s Maud. We didn’t see any fish at all. There was a boat moored in front of the wreckage of the Maud. A Norwegian concern has recently been recovered from the sea and next year will be towed to Norway where it will be preserved in the museum there that houses Amundson’s other 2 ships the Fram and the Gjoa. We visited both last year. The driver also told us that the Post Office was using a Maud cancellation stamp until the ship leaves. We went into the Post Office and the man working there had just stamped a Post-It Note to show another passenger. She said she was going to buy some postcards at the Co-op and be back. I asked him if he’d give me the Post-It and he did! Clay got a Nunavut t-shirt at the Visitor’s. I got a Nunavut Provincial Flag embroidered patch at the Co-op. We did go to the Nunavut Arts Fair and to the craft sale in the school. At the school, they were also giving away free local foods. Clay ate muktuk (which was boiled narwhal skin and blubber) he had his dipped in soy sauce and I guess he liked it. He had Arctic Char 3 ways, as a type of salsa on a cracker, as dried jerky and like sushi on a cracker. He ate an open face muskox slider. We both ate a little puff pastry with artic berry filling. When we got back to the zodiac tender beach they had a pot cooking filled with big chunks of moose. It had a line up but they were big drumstick-sized pieces of meat on the bone and we passed. We went to the Northern Store which had a Quik-Stop attached where they had the KFC and Pizza Hut express outlets. I think that was about it. We were back aboard Serenity by 1pm. Oh, I guess I should talk about the shuttle rides. Evidently EYOS/Crystal put out a call for all available vehicles and they’d pay whoever gave rides back and forth all day. We wound up both ways in one of the 2 hotels’ shuttle buses with the hotel manager driving. It was supposed to be about 10km and it was about a 20-minute ride. We drove through a real working gravel pit beyond the beach, past the airport, past the DEW line station and past the golf course. It is a desolate landscape. Oh, wildlife sightings! We went back to the Arts Fair at the Community Center before leaving so I could use the restroom. The 2 local volunteers were pointing out some busy little critter under the building when we arrived but I didn’t see it. When I came back out, I spoke to the girl who was still sitting there. She asked me if I had ever seen a sisksisk (I think that is what it sounded like she said). I told her I didn’t think so. She pointed out that it was running between this building and along the front of the next. I asked her if it was the same as an Arctic Ground Squirrel, which I thought it was, and she said yes, the same. So, I had seen one before. We thanked her and followed it back up the street. I was carrying a rodent not much smaller than itself in its mouth. It crossed the street and then the cross street and we lost it. So, we missed the arctic hare, but we did get to see more than just birds. There is a low mountain visible from town and evidently there are large herds of muskox up there. They were spinning Qiviut at the craft fair! We didn’t ever get close enough to their table to even check prices here.

We ate lunch at Lido Buffet after changing out of our waterproof gear. At 2pm there was a craft sale and throat singing demonstration scheduled in Crystal Plaza. We went early to snag seats at Cove Bar. There was throat singing, which you’ll have to Google. I have to confess I don’t understand the tradition. Then there was a kicking contest demonstration with a boy and a young man. They could both kick an object that dangled over their own heads. Last was a larger troupe of drum singers/dancers. It was an enjoyable hour. They had something similar about 10am and 4pm. There is an understanding that they are not allowing everyone ashore due to physical abilities to zodiac tender and they are trying to bring somethings onboard from the zodiac ports for those and all guests. I have to say that Crystal has done a much better job than we ever expected. I guess that is the good thing about low expectations is you get a pleasant surprise.

We checked out 2 DVDs later. We watched “Salmon Fishing in Yemen” and really liked it. Tonight we plan to watch “Prince Avalanche”. We also have to move the clocks forward one hour tonight. Since we have a stretch of 5 sailings day through the Canadian Archipelago section of the North West Passage, we should have plenty of time to adjust.

Dinner was 6pm in the main dining room. It was not great but OK. I should mention that when we got back aboard this afternoon, we stopped by the Reception Desk and asked the Concierge for dry rice for the dropped wet camera. She understood immediately what we wanted to do and about 15 minutes later the doorbell rang. The waiter with the bowl of raw rice wasn’t at all sure he was delivering the right thing. I assured him that was exactly what we wanted. The photos on the card early this morning have been retrieved but the camera is probably toast. It has not restarted. It won’t cost anything to keep it in a bag of rice for a couple of more days, so we will and keep trying to power it up. We’ll see.

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Sailing Dolphin & Union Strait & Coronation Gulf

Sunday, August 28, 2016

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I slept right through the night from around 10pm to 7am! We are sailing Dolphin & Union Strait so the seas are pretty calm, still I was dizzy and unsteady this morning. It is Sunday so I wanted a special breakfast. We went to the downstairs main restaurant and I had Eggs Benedict and Clay had blueberry pancakes. It was pretty quiet in there. Evidently on grand voyages only Crystal has an occasional Viennese Buffet on a Sunday.  Today is one of those special days. From 11:30am to 1:30pm they will turn the Crystal Plaza into a big food court. We looked around at the setup they were working on after breakfast. It looked like it would be a nightmare. I told Clay he could photograph it from above if he wanted, but I’d rather eat at the Lido buffet. At 9am I did gentle yoga in Palm Court. At 10am I went back to the cabin because I wanted to watch the Inuit Print Making Lecture. After my first try at attending a lecture live and not being able to find a seat, I’d just as soon watch the cabin broadcast. Clay was watching the movie “Brooklyn”. He had no recollection of seeing it before. It should be rebroadcast, so I’ll hope to see it later. There is a TV movie on at 3pm I’d like to see. It will be a quiet sailing day for us before Cambridge Bay tomorrow. Last night we watched on TV the destination talk for Cambridge Bay. It seems that the Community Visit tour we booked will get us a zodiac ride to a remote beach landing where they hope some vendors will have tents set up nearby. It was not clear if walking into town is feasible or how far or close it is. It was clear that they have requested all available transportation to shuttle passengers back and forth but I guess none or few have been promised. If you get to town, it sounded like a school and art center and community center have opened to us with arts and crafts vendors. Since we won’t be there overnight like Ulukhaktok, we won’t really know what to expect until we arrive. We are on the 9am zodiac group which is number 3 of the community visits.

It was a quiet day today. We have been in view of land off the port side for most of the day. Evidently there is a narrow channel through this part that is deep enough to be navigable. The landscape is barren and desolate. The big excitement was passing a DEW station. I keep forgetting to write about this. We have been seeing and hearing about the DEW line since Nome. Evidently some time through the 1950’s and 1960’s the Americans spent billions building a Defense Early Warning system against Soviet ICBMs. I believe we were told that it had been decommissioned but the stations and towers and airfields are still in place. This was the largest one we’ve seen. It looked like it had big hangars and it had 2 huge golf ball looking things. Clay thought he saw some seals in the water in the afternoon. I saw birds only.

The other thing I’ve forgotten to write about was how the expedition crew and ship’s crew worked together yesterday manning zodiac lifevests. This was the thing that really streamlined the process and enabled them to process so many people in the time allotted. Every other expedition cruise we’ve been on, this has been an obstacle and a time-wasting cluster. You have to go pull a vest from a pile get it straightened out and adjusted and strapped on. Here both leaving and returning they had us approach several people fitting the zodiac lifevests in a line. When it was your turn, a crew member of some kind held your bag or daypack and held the vest for you to turn around and slip your arms in, then the put the bag back on your back, turned you around or came around you and fastened and tightened it and sent you on your way. It was a huge time saver! Well done. Our regular assistant waiter Ben is on the shore side team for that and is loving it.

At the expedition briefing and recap we learned that we’ve traveled over 3000 miles and have over 4000 to go! We cruised Coronation Gulf this afternoon and have a last strait before we arrive at our anchorage for Cambridge Bay. Ulukhaktok was on west side of Victoria Island and Cambridge Bay is on the south side. Ulukhaktok (which means place of ulu knives!) is in the Northwest Territories and Cambridge Bay is in Nunavut which is Canada’s newest and largest province.

We learned more about our visit tomorrow and it sounds a bit more promising now. It should be partly cloudy and 48F. There should be cultural events and arts/crafts sales both onboard and ashore and the leader actually said and it was printed on the map about a 10K shuttle service from the gravel pit beach to town and the handful of buildings open to us. They rescheduled their annual arts festival so we could attend. In less positive news, they were disappointed to have to inform us that the Public Library had decided since we were coming that they would impose a CAD$25 entry fee to their small museum area. The school also wanted us to know that no boots or shoes would be allowed inside and would have to be removed and left at the door. I guess they do this all over the Arctic. We saw the shoe/boot storage cubbies at Ulukhaktok too but they didn’t enforce it.

Dinner was not special, but the food was fine as was the wine. At 8pm we went to the popcorn movie “Louder than Bombs”. It was sad. Time for bed now. We have a busy day tomorrow followed by 5 sea days. The wildlife viewing so far has been a big disappointment. After 5 days on Svalbard without a polar bear, I guess I’m over expectations. A woman at yoga said they were wildlife viewing from a fast boat yesterday and when asked what they viewed, she answered an arctic hare. Hmmm. They’re wild animals, even if you think you know where they are they don’t have to be there when you are. It sucks about no Northern Lights too though. At least we have seen polar bears and auroras in the past! I’ll see if there is Internet now and if so I’ll post this before bed.

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Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories

Saturday, August 27, 2016

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The big excitement in my afternoon yesterday was when an RCMP, or Mountie, appeared in Lido Aft balcony performing some kind of ship inspection. He was in full regalia with a bright red coat, big hat and sidearm belted across his chest at his waist. I guess because I wasn’t working, but just sitting waiting 30 minutes for my paint to dry, I saw him and no one else had noticed. I couldn’t take it anymore and pointed him out to the others. It was like groupies at a rock concert! The guy was a trip posing here and there on deck for several minutes for photos. I didn’t have a camera or I might’ve done the same. Not like the first time we saw a Mountie like that and snuck photos from across the street and a parking lot!

Dinner was fine. We both had filet mignon. The evening’s entertainment was 2 troupes of local performers. As the cruise director said, it doesn’t get more local than this. We enjoyed it even if all the songs sounded the same to us. The dancing is mostly with hand movements. We had a bed gift last night. It is a piece of traditional Inuit art from the Canadian Arctic. They say they ordered a gift for every cabin over a year ago. Each piece is unique and hand-carved from local stone by the renowned carvers of Nunavut. The card says this is some of the contribution that Crystal has and is making to the region we are visiting. Last night before the performance they had a plaque presentation for inaugural port visit and said they had donated money and a ton of school supplies. They also introduced the RCMP and said after they boarded they learned from them about their Santa Project to buy gifts for children at Christmas and they presented them with a giant $2000 check. Ulukhaktok is famed for artists too but in printmaking.

We were delayed about 20 minutes in our zodiac departure time. I am not sure what the delay was due to but they were blaming the chop. We could see it was choppy from upstairs. Breakfast buffet started at 5:30am. We were up at 6am and in a lightly attended buffet by 7am. Our departure from Stardust should have been at 8:30am but it was about that time that the 8am group got called. We heard ashore that the morning kayaking excursion was canceled due to the wind and chop. We heard on the tender ride back around 1pm or so that they added some afternoon kayaking to make it up. The sun was shining and it was all blue skies for a couple of hours midday. It was 37F when we woke up today and the forecast high was 46F. I expect it made it. We did not wear our parkas. We were sweating bullets by the time we boarded an admittedly cold zodiac ride ashore. There were 3 stores (we visited 2, the Co-Op and Northern), the arts center, the community hall set up as an arts and crafts mall, the school which had an arts and crafts mall set up as well as free samples of Arctic Char chowder and the Anglican Mission church. All the buildings were hot with us being dressed for the zodiac rides. After all the buildings had been visited, we walked up the viewpoint walk to Uluksartok Bluff. It was supposedly a 1 mile walk in each direction. It was steep and a very rough rocky road. The good news was the wind pushed us going up. Three times or more as we hiked uphill, a 4-prop engine plane circled the hill and Ulukhaktok. When we got to the top there was an expediton guide excitedly photographing it and he told us it was an Aurora, sub-hunting plane of teh Canadian military. The views were pretty spectacular. We could see all 3 bays, the zodiacs, the Serenity and the Shackleton, the town, the airport and the golf course. We watched a woman work at print making. She was working with a template and ink with brushes and what looked like homemade paper. It was a picture of a girl in a pink parka on a dog sled with 2 dogs. She told me it was very her memory of when she used to travel (by dog sled) with her father to train the dogs and to go ice fishing. She used to travel! I loved that and later that was the print I bought for $15. We also spoke with a woman who was loading a change of color thread on a Brother knitting machine. She said she was making it with Qivuit. (Say kiv it.) Qivuit is a fiber made from the undercoat of musk ox. They were selling the yarn in Nome at what we heard were exorbitant prices. I didn’t check any prices there. The hats here were selling for $160. I didn’t see any yarn for sale here, but the woman who was loading the Brother knitting machine must have had about $2000 worth of yarn stacked up on the table behind her. Clay bought a t-shirt and I got a coffee mug at the Co-op. We were supposed to return around 11:30am according to our ticket, but for practical purposes you could leave as early or late as you wanted. We were on our way back about 12:30pm and on a zodiac around 1. We found a line of 8 loaded zodiacs waiting to reboard the ship when we got to the starboard side. I am not sure what the log jam was. I have to say that they did a better job with the zodiacs than I had expected. They were still working out the kinks when we boarded ours to leave. The 4^th guy to get in staggered around and stumbled onto the tube and never did grip anything to keep himself in place. I don’t know how he managed to stay aboard, just dumb luck. They learned a lesson there, not to release your passenger until they are seated. The zodiac before ours was the kind we’d been on before with the driver in the back steering the outboard motor with a stick and they only got 8 aboard. Remember they said they needed 10 aboard each to move everyone in time today. Ours had a standing center console, was larger and was loaded with 16 so they were probably averaging 10 per boatload with both types of zodiacs. We saw one coming back with 20 aboard! It was a good day. The only animals seen were birds. Seabirds and ravens.

We had lunch in the Lido buffet and they had a wide choice and it was a good meal. At 2:30pm they were having a 2-hour Traditional Mitt Making class. They had one in the morning too. Three women from Ulukhaktok were teaching with I think the help of an onboard instructor in the Studio. I was in there at 2:10pm with a bunch of people who were left over from the morning session for personal help. By 2:18pm, it looked like they were about out of space but by now some of the new people were receiving instruction to get started and some like my half of the room were being ignored. I could see the gist of it. Cutting out red felt around cardboard patterns, sewing the pieces together and then trimming in contrasting thread. I decided I didn’t need to fight for that and gave up my seat as there were people in the hall trying to get in. I went up to Palm Court and watched a woman and 3 kids on rocks picking up stuff that had washed up through the giant tripod-mounted binoculars and watched the Cineflex screens. I got run out as they were setting up for tea time and people who wanted to sit at those set tables were coming in looking for seats. I was just there for the views, Cineflex and sunshine by which to needlepoint. I came back to the cabin where Clay was possibly sleeping through a Mission Impossible movie. He told me he couldn’t access our blog to attach photo links so I did it. Internet was up but painfully slow.

We start sailing again tonight about 8pm. (Everyone was back onboard before 7pm as all the zodiacs were off the beach and the Shackleton had sailed. We set sail before 8pm.) Tomorrow we sail all day. The next day we should be anchored off Cambridge Bay. If we still have Internet, I’ll post this now. We have no evening plans beyond dinner in the main dining room an hour from now.

I would like to say that I recommend EYOS Expeditions. This is the company that Crystal hired to handle this North West Passage expedition style cruise. They have done an excellent job with what they have to work with. I'm not sure whether they do anything that we would have an opportunity to travel with them again, but I would recommend them and look for them again in the future.

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