Akpatok Island, Ungava Bay 18th August

A day of disappointment!

We arrived at Akpatok Island at 6.30am and cruised along the cliffs on the north side. The weather had become pretty bad, with the wind howling and blowing a gale. It was obvious to me that we would not be doing a Zodiac tour along the cliffs. Sure enough, at 7.40am, Robin West came on the address system to say that because of the weather, we were going to sail to the western side of the island to see if it was more sheltered there.

The heaving sea outside our cabin window.

We went up for breakfast and while we were eating, there was a further announcement to say we were going to sail to the southern end of the island in a final effort to see if we could land there. In the meantime, lectures had been laid on and so we went to listen to Robin Aiello talk about polar bears. It was another excellent presentation. She really brings her subject alive by including up-to-date research information combined with plenty of humour.

Following the lecture, we arrived at the southern tip of Akpatok where the weather, if anything, was the worst we had encountered so far. Robin West announced that any attempt to land there had to be abandoned and we would start the 150 mile journey to Douglas Harbour on the southern shores of the Hudson Strait. More lectures and a trivia quiz would be laid on for the afternoon.

We went to the lounge for coffee and chatted with Joy and also Brad and Leslie, who live near Santa Fe, New Mexico. They talked about the wildfire risks they faced and we compared their experiences to ours in Southern California. Wendy then went to listen to Peter Damisch’s second lecture on the Franklin expedition, while I went to the cabin and watched it on the TV.

I logged on to the internet for a check of the football score from Stamford Bridge. It was their first game of the season with Jose Mourinho back as manager. It was good to see they were 2-0 up at half-time!!

The weather was starting to get better and by lunchtime, although the boat was rocking quite a bit, we could see that the wind was less strong and the sea was becoming calmer.

We decided to go to the afternoon lecture which turned out to be an American documentary on the effects of global warming on the glaciers of Alaska, Montana, Greenland and Iceland. This was introduced by Juan. It had some wonderful time-lapse photography, which showed how much the glaciers were retreating, as well as some incredible shots of glaciers calving.

At the end of the lecture, we both went up on deck where the sun was now shining and I was able to take some video and a few photos of the birds following the ship.

 

I checked up again on the internet to see how Chelsea had done against Hull and learned they had won 2-0, a good start under Jose!

We had a chat with Daniel and spoke to Tallulah and Ethan before they fly back from Los Angeles to London tomorrow afternoon. It was good to talk to the children. I then used my iPhone to contact Ed via Ship Cellular, a service that I didn’t realise I could access. I will find out when I get back home how much the call has cost me!!

We missed the afternoon tea and the trivia quiz and met for a drink with Mike, Pippa, Neil, Brenda, Joy and Craig before we all went for dinner. I sat next to Pippa, who told me all about her work with an organisation trying to stop the breeding of lions for hunting in South Africa. What the lions have to endure sounded pretty horrific.

Before going to bed, we briefly saw some Northern Lights, but they were not very spectacular.

In the morning we will reach Douglas Harbour, where we are hoping to get ashore for a hike. Our expedition crew will be guiding us and taking their rifles in case we encounter any polar bears.