At sea - day 2 - 15th August

After the excitement of the Northern Lights last night, we woke to a beautiful sunny morning with a flat sea. The temperature had fallen to 39 degrees Fahrenheit as we sailed on across the Davis Strait.

I checked our emails to find out how Joel had done in his A-levels. There was no news, so I contacted Matthew. A few minutes later, we heard back that Joel had three B’s which was good enough for him to get a place at Brunel University. We immediately emailed to congratulate him on his success.

A late breakfast was followed by the first of three lectures we attended during the day. It was by Juan on geology, then it was Robin Aiello on the weirder marine creatures of the Arctic waters. Finally, after lunch, Peter Damisch spoke about the three Franklin expeditions of the 19th century. The first two were to explore the north of Canada. The third expedition was to find the Northwest Passage, but ended in disaster with all 140 crew members dying of starvation, cold and poisoning.

At around 4pm, we had our first sight of the Canadian coastline as we entered Frobisher Bay, with about 140 nautical miles to go to Iqaluit.

This evening it is the Venetian Society cocktail party followed by dinner with one of the crew - the staff engineer!

Before the cocktail party, we had the briefing and recap during which Richard Sidey gave a great preview of his DVD of the tour. This included a brilliant video of last night’s Northern Lights. I was so impressed with it that I signed up for the DVD, the first time I have bought the official cruise DVD.

The cocktail party was hosted by Tim Amm, who announced those passengers with the most number of days on Silversea. We went down to the dining room for an interesting dinner, where we were seated with Valerio Assante, the staff engineer, and Mike and Zuzanna Pfeffer from Ealing. Assante reminded me of Nick Smith and spent much of the meal saying how he hated cold climates!

After dinner I went out on the aft deck to see if the Northern Lights would return for a second night.

After about half an hour, around 11pm, the first sign of the Lights could be seen off the stern of the ship. Wendy came up on deck and joined me with Craig and Joy. Over the next hour, we had a wonderful display of the Northern Lights. This time they were much more diffuse and cloud-like,  compared with the broad ‘curtains’ of lights we had seen the previous night. After an hour I went back down to the cabin and Wendy followed about half an hour later.

Tomorrow morning we arrive in Canada at Iqaluit, the principal town of Nunavut, where we clear Canadian customs. The Canadian authorities are insisting on each passenger and crew member being individually cleared by a customs and immigration officer. This is going to take place in the theatre, followed by a dry landing. During the afternoon, we will be shown round the town by local tour guides.