Sea Ice and Critters!

 We woke up this morning to the announcement that the ship had entered the ice field outside of Scoresby Sund, though we wouldn't have time to explore the fjord as we had hoped.  But the flat sea ice was quite a different scene from the many glacial icebergs we had already seen.

During breakfast, everyone suddenly leapt to their feet and rushed to the starboard windows. One of the Expedition team came through, saying "Other side! Other side!"  We figured it was a whale, but no....it was our first polar bear, with a freshly-killed seal.  Lars got some good shots.  NOTE: these are NOT "cute polar bear" photos, but rather an apex predator with its kill. Don't zoom in if this will be an issue for you.

During an afternoon talk about polar bears by René, he said that from the size, he initially assumed it to be a male, but instead it turned out to be a VERY fat female!

We also learned that it was extremely rare to see a Greenlandic polar bear, as the country is very large and there aren't so many bears.  And then to simply happen upon it on a random crossing, 27 kilometers out to sea... AND with a fresh kill.... A very unlikely thing to happen. 

A bit later on, we came across a couple of Harp Seals, just chillin' on an ice floe. And possibly a hooded seal in the back of the 2nd pic...I haven't had a chance to have someone check it for me.

Sheila got to do some "citizen science" by participating in 20 minutes of counting all the sea birds people could spot. They have some way of making sure not to count the same animals twice, and then they enter the sightings into Cornell Labs' EBird. Don't recall all the totals, but 5 Common and one Brunnich's Guillemot (if you see a "penguin" in the Arctic, it's a Brunnich's), and 74 Little Auks!! The Little Auk is often referred to as "the flying potato"!  

Pics from the EBird website:

They do their best to keep us entertained during long days at sea. At 4PM, there was a game called "How Big Is It?" Teams of six did their best to answer questions like "How long is a Humpback Whale's pectoral fin?", or "What's the diameter of a male Polar Bear's paw?", by placing a clothespin at the appropriate spot on a rope.  So not only did you have to guess the answer, you had to be able to eyeball the distance. You could also get extra points by dancing, doing push-ups, or flat-out bribing the judges with drinks and snacks.  It was a lot of rowdy fun.

Whale spouts were seen all around as we approached dinnertime, but none came very close.

At day's end, we met up with our sister ship, the Sylvia Earle, and managed a transfer of our Greenlandic guide, Kimannaq, as the Sylvia Earle's guide had to leave the ship early.

We're about to lose another hour tonight (2 nights in a row!) as we transition to Norwegian time for the Svalbard part of the trip.  So it'll be an early night for both of us.