At 10 we were picked up and brought to the Polar Bears International House where we received a presentation on polar bears; life, habits, reaction to change in climate and environment, etc. As opposed to last year they served cookies during this visit!
Lunch was a brunch buffet, a nice change to the usual ordered meals. After the meal we left to go out in a boat to cross the channel to get to the Prince of Wales fort where we did an hour’s walk and we told about its history and usage. It was a couple of 100 meters walk from the boat with several stops along the way for a few talks – and arriving at the fort we were hit by heavy rainfall. It didn’t last long – only a few minutes – but in that time we lost visibility and got very wet. There were discussions whether to return to the boat but the rain subsided and we stayed for a bit longer as originally planned.
Being in bear country there were lookouts and patrols spread out around us and we had a guard with us at all times. It was standard precaution, especially now that it turned out one had been spotted in the forts vicinity. It could be seen when standing at the fort in the distance, and while we had the downpour it actually got up from the rock it was partially hiding behind and walk around for a bit before laying down behind another rock and disappearing from view.
Returning to the boat we were supposed to do a one-hour beluga cruise. The whales were surfacing all over so you couldn’t not see them buy just looking over the waters. So instead we started out by heading out to where the bear had been spotted – but instead we found two separate bears in the area. We spent maybe half an hour with them – one was just lying down while the other was moving around – before heading out to try to get close to some belugas.
Getting close to the animals wasn’t particularly difficult, but seeing anything but their backs when they arched above the waterline was close to impossible. Fortunately, there were plenty of arctic terns around to distract from the failed attempts to get a good face shot of the whales.
Returned to land – and the hotel – we had a short rest before dinner. During dinner a couple in the group talked about that the previous night they had gone down to the beach and in the process seen a snowy owl. I decided right there and then to try and do the same that evening, but all I ended up getting was more belugas, terns and a bonkers amount of flies and mosquitos.
No comments:
Post a Comment