Today was our first day at sea. We were far up inside Lancaster Sound at Leopold Island and up to  Wellington Channel between Cornwallis and Devon Island. This is all part of the Northwest Passage. Pretty cool. We’ve now been to Devon Island and Beechy Island.

Today should have been a landing at Bylot Island, but the seas are rough and it is now snowing, so instead, we hung off the rails looking for birds. Earlier, we searched for polar bears on the sea ice as we crept along. I had my binoculars out and was carefully searching the surface ice, and I think I saw a beige, fuzzy shape. It was too far to photograph, so I watched it, but when I spoke to the person next to me, it disappeared— into the water?

Actually, I did the most bird watching while sitting next to a birder at dinner tonight, looking over our dinner party’s heads out the window at all the fulmars and kittiwakes flying and diving into the sea at the endless twilight. It was quite lovely.

Other than that, today was spent going from thing to thing. John and I had a bit of birdwatching outdoors in the snow this morning, then dressed for the arctic winter, had a tour of the hangar downstairs, then wandered the ship when I found the knitters corner and talked about quiviut wool from the musk ox (I’m now an expert) and then to lunch where we invited more people to our farewell dinner Tuesday night. (No surprise, but I’m organizing a lot of dinners on board.) Then to the Skulls workshop, where I showed up early, got the early bird tour, and was ready to ace the test, if there was one. Then to storytelling with Niels, the Greenlander—an awesome dude. Then a quick galley tour—wow. It’s huge and all stainless steel and perfectly clean. No cooking at 4 pm except for the bit of meat out for thawing.

John and I watched a movie in the room, then dressed for our big event dinner—dinner with four of the expedition staff who all get along great with each other and us. Good, good group. Aaron and Shane are wildlife experts, Niels is a native Greenlander, and Pablo is the Expedition leader from Ushuaia. We traded survival and wildlife stories and talked without stopping for more than two hours. I think they were so excited to have a fine dining experience aboard, even more than our companionship, but ended up liking both. We had fond handshakes and will be friends from now on. Great group— ooo’s and ahh’s mixed with hysterical laughter.  Good job.

And that was a day at sea!