August 11^th, 2026

Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, Nunavut

I had looked up Pond Inlet and had failed to find much that would make it exciting for tourists, or even folks on expeditions. It had been a mystery to me as to what adventure could lay ahead for us there.

All was revealed at last night’s expedition briefing.

We were making a “technical” stop there from 1:00 to 5:00 so that the Canadian customs and immigration people could come on board and clear the ship for our passage through Canada. That seemed like an awfully long time, especially as we are quite a small ship, but if that’s what they want, that’s what they will get.

Maybe they are also making sure that the ship is seaworthy. I bet the Canadian coastguard does not want to do too many rescues in the icy waters of this part of the world.

It certainly looked interesting when I looked out of the window this morning.

The view just got better and better as we got closer to Pond Inlet.

We spent the morning in the Constellation Lounge working and watching the view.

Then it was time for trivia. It was a bit difficult at first as the team we were in yesterday wanted us to stay with them, and the wine tasting members from yesterday were back and expected us to rejoin them. Nice to be wanted. We decided to go back to the 2 timers and said farewell to Artificial Intelligence. It seemed like the right thing to do. Puffy, the Seabourn puffin, belonging to Jennifer, joined our team. He will be part of our build a boat effort – but I can’t say more about our plans. It is top secret.

One peeve I have with trivia on the Venture is the quality of the popcorn. It is OK, but not up to the usual Seabourn standard. We usually only consume one or two bowls, not the 4 or 5 we have done in the past. However, the good thing is that they do have potato chips as well if you ask for them, so all is not lost.

We came close, but did not win today. It was a shame as the prize was a little Seabourn stuffed puffin, just like Puffy

We arrived in Pond Inlet during lunch. The town didn’t look that enticing.

However, the surrounding scenery did look spectacular.

There was a special British themed lunch. However, there was no roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Although the fish and chips and mushy peas did look inviting I settled on the steak pie, which turned out to be an excellent choice. We sat outside in the sun,

so unfortunately didn’t get to hear Charlie Pothecary, the ship’s guitarist, playing British music. It was an unusual theme to have in the Arctic, but maybe they were paying homage to Canda’s British origins.

In the afternoon I thought that seeing as it was sunny and the ship was not moving so there was no wind on deck, this would be the perfect time to try out the hot tubs.

The deck 5 hot tubs are close to our cabin, but getting there involves walking though the Colonnade restaurant, so I decided to use one of the tubs outside the Club on deck 9.

I had the whole place to myself, and it was absolutely wonderful to just sit and soak there, taking in the beautiful scenery.

At 5:00 sharp the Canadian officials left, we started up our engines and headed out into the open waters.

The Expedition Recap and Briefing gave all the information we needed for tomorrow’s first Zodiac rides. This has been a great cruise so far, but I can’t wait for the real expedition to begin!