Arctic #8

Arctic #8 - Tues Sept 3
Today was awesome --- woke up to sunny skies, gorgeous scenery (glaciers on the mountains surrounding the fiord) and warm temperatures -- started out at 9 C this morning.
We sailed up the Cumberland Sound which is 250 km long and 80 km wide. It's hard for us to realize how very large the Arctic is when we only are used to seeing it on a map. We had been going up it during the night and still had three or four hours left to go this morning.
So, during that time we had lectures. The first was by Sue Flood who has filmed Blue Planet, etc. for BBC. She showed us how they got some of their shots and the conditions they had to live in.Pretty extreme.
The second lecture was on polar bears.
After lunch we went ashore in zodiacs to see Kerkerten Historic Park which is a former whaling community -- Scottish and American. It closed in 1925 after they killed most of the bowhead whales off. We had seven local guides who had come from the nearest community 50 km away in their 28 foot aluminum boat. They were from Pangnirtung, an Inuit hamlet of 1300 people. They fish for turbot in this area and are allowed to get a couple of whales a year. They are also known for their high-quality printmaking and weaving. It would have been nice to go to their village.
I forgot to say yesterday that we saw our first icebergs -- just a couple of them.