We are very lucky.
I don’t know how I deserved to be able to be here.
It’s like winter in summer.
Did you feel that? (as the ship rumbled over ice) How many people get to see this?
I just can’t turn away from it.
Wonderful.
It’s like magic.
Look, polar bear tracks!
Is this really real?
These are a few of the things people said on the ship’s decks, as we began to feel the ship slow down, and see a few lonely icebergs turn into larger packs of sea ice. (The ship is the red dot in the image above, and the pink area is the limit of permanent sea ice.) It was otherworldly – the translucent blue that only exists in sea ice, the sound of the ice trailing alongside the ship, the bumps as the ship cracked through chunks of ice, the biting wind, and the Sun and the Moon both bright in the sky. It took us a few days to get to the ice, and ice will come and go for a few days as we travel along the perimeter of the sea ice extent. But even though none of seem to remember what day it is, I think all of us Arctic first-timers will never forget this day.
Loved this post! We readers are lucky by extension. Thanks for making these posts so readable and fun for us lay folks.
Thanks Jennifer, I’m so glad you are enjoying following along. It’s overwhelming with so many things going on and so much to do, but also overwhelming in the sense that I can’t quite believe it’s real!