I signed up for the Polar Sea icebreaker
cruise the other day and out of 600 names, I was picked as an alternate. They took two cruises with 200 people on each and luckily, (probably with much thanks to last night's Carp Shop BBQ - pictured here) not many folks showed up at 7:30 in the morning and even though I was pretty far down the list, I was one of the last names called.

(This hungry little skua got plenty to eat)

We left town and steamed out the channel for an hour or so until turning around just before the ice edge. However, we did see plenty of open water within the channel, as well as penguins, seals and even several minke whales. It was so great to be on a boat, to feel the engines rumble and the slow turning and listing of the ship. Not to mention, just staring over the edge and watching all the brash ice peel off to the sides as we cut through at 11 knots was pretty amazing.



I was lucky enough to be up on the fly bridge when the whales went by so we could watch them swim under water and come up for air. Just before seeing the whales, the captain announced that we needed to ram the ice shelf in order to turn around. It was a bit smoother than I thought it would be as we just kind of floated up on top, then sunk through the 17 foot thick ice.

The last picture is from yesterday, when two hovercrafts came near town from a cruise ship that was out in the bay. I watched both of them arrive and noticed that one seemed to have some trouble maneuvering and just didn't really sound right. Turns out it broke down and they had to get some mechanics out to fix it. Apparently the USAP tried hovercrafts for five or six years, but they were simply too problematic and they couldn't figure out how to avoid tearing up the bladder on the sharp ice. They sure would be fun though... the working one looked like it was easily going 50 or 60 miles per hour.

~G