After crossing Hells Gate after midnight with less ice as expected, we made it to South Cape Fjord during the night. We woke up to another great day here in the high Arctic—with no wind in the morning and blue sky. Having 53 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning is a big change to seeing the sea ice freeze up as we sailed during the night.
National Geographic Explorer anchored up at a beautiful glacier, and we split up in groups hiking 1,200 feet to the nearest mountain, and Zodiac cruises for the rest of us. The hike showed great fossils on the way up the mountain and a fantastic view at the top over the bay with the ship anchored.
On the Zodiac cruise some of us were lucky to witness a couple of arctic terns feeding a young chick with what seemed to be amphipods. A beautiful and graceful bird that will dive in the water from elevations up to tens of feet and feed on crustaceans and small fish. The arctic tern is somehow similar to our ship—the National Geographic Explorer in the way that none of them have winters. The arctic tern will breed in the high Arctic, like here in Arctic Canada. But towards September, they will migrate towards the other side of the planet, where they in winter stay in the southern ocean amongst pack ice in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. This is believed to be the greatest migratory movement of any bird–they enjoy a life of perpetual summer.
Cruising along the front of the glacier also gave us some of the greatest calving we have experienced this season. A massive iceberg calved off of the glacier creating a lot of ice debris at the front, with a big swell that even our ship–the National Geographic Explorer reported to have felt as the wave hit the ship. To have the chance to see this at a safe distance on the Zodiac is really a great experience, as it is to cruise amongst the great icebergs that already have calved off and are floating in front of the glacier.
Coming back to the ship and having a group photo of all of us on the bow of the ship by one of our National Geographic photographers was just the right way to end another great day on our epic Arctic trip.
