James Ross Strait and Sea Ice
Make or Break day
We awoke to find the ship sailing, apparently without any sea ice, but then it slowed until it came to an almost complete stop to pick a route through the sea ice. The ice pilot had determined at 10.30 the night before, that the ship could navigate the sea ice as the big sheets of ice had moved westward, allowing us passage. It was slow going through the ice which sometimes looked almost impenetrable and other times the sea looked clear. Progress was slow through the James Ross strait as the water was relatively shallow for a ship of our size.
The landscape was completely different. On the sides of the Lancaster Sound were mountains or cliffs reaching down to the stony beaches. Here the land was flatter with what looked like sandy beaches from a distance. Here the permafrost is melting and erosion is beginning to happen at the water’s edge, giving rise to water turbidity and changing the fish life.
I enjoyed a yoga session, whilst Peter metaphorically enjoyed a run to the boulangerie in Monestiés (same distance but different landscape). We used the time to bring our blog up to date, walk around decks 7 and 8, incorporating stairs in our circuit, attend a marvellous lecture on the secret journeys of birds, a worrisome one on microplastic and a fantastic lecture from Tomski on the King of the Arctic, the polar bear.
Dinner comprised a spectacular seafood buffet and we retired to the Explorer Lounge and Bar, anxious to tackle another expedition off the ship.
