Wandering Arkie goes to the Arctic. Day 3 in the high Arctic.

Day 3.

Birds... again.

Guess what we did today? We went to the floe edge. We find a very good spot this morning. A large part of the floe has broken off and floated away. No wind, the water is calm. More tiny specks on the horizon representing whales (?).

And birds.

Since we can't see whales, we listen for them. A hydrophone is set up. Goodness, it is noisy under the water. Understanding that whale song can travel very long distances, Clive thinks he hears a blue whale from Sri Lanka. Really, it just sounds like a loop recording of eerie noises from a scary movie.

The wind comes up out of the north. It is cold and is blowing that several mile wide sheet of ice that had broken off yesterday back into the floe at an alarming rate. The rise of water ahead of the ice sheet bearing down on us causes the ice we are standing on to ripple. We are assured that sea ice is more flexible that fresh water ice. So, no worries. Still, we take notice of the fact that the guides have us packed up and on to sturdier ice in a handful of minutes. If they were concerned, we were scared.

The Cliffs of Insanity

So, for our afternoon frivolities, we scooted over the ice to the Fulmar nesting grounds, which are high up on cliffsides to the east of the ice floe. Fulmars are birds that look like gulls, but aren't. They have funny tube shaped nostrils on top of their bills that help them manage salt excretion and locate food by smell. Thank you, Vickie, for your informative bird lecture. Stunning lanscape. The cliffs are beautiful and the birds are noisy. But they are safe. No hungry bears, foxes, or sane humans are going to climb up to check out those nests. I'm sure some less than sane humans have done so. Cindy's favorite part of the trip, so far. She loved the cliffscapes, the colors. Other than the white of the snow/ice and the blue of the sky, this is the only color around.

Dinner of short ribs and creme brule. Chef, right? Not fry cook.
Short narwhal legend. A lot of Inuit legends are downers and have a lot to do with karma. Then, its off to bed with dreams of dancing narwhals in our heads. It's still really hard to get excited about going to sleep when it is still daylight. Cindy is still losing stuff. Gets ear phones wrapped up in sleeping mask. She’s at least entertaining.