August 7^th

At Sea (Baffin Bay)

They should always give you a sea day on your first day of a cruise. It gives you time to work out where you put everything when you unpacked in haste the previous night, sort your cabin out, and get an idea of what the ship is like.

They did give us a sea day, but it was so busy we might as well have been in port.

We started the day going down to the Landing Zone on deck 3 which is where you stop off before and after you zoom around on the Zodiacs when you are on an expedition. Seabourn lend you boots for the duration of the cruise, and this is where they are stored, so we went down there for the opportunity to find the boot of our dreams. The first boots I tried on (wearing our thick hiking cold weather socks) were good, so then I had to do battle getting them off. They have low tables that you sit on to put on your boots. When you want to take them off you sit there again, and there is a small metal ridge that you are meant to use to help you extract your foot out of the boot, but it doesn’t really work. So, after many tries I had to resort to having Brian try to get the boot off. He did succeed, but I do hope it is going to be easier in the future. I don’t want to go through that again.

After the boot fiasco we went to meet with Max who teaches the Image Masters program. We had signed up for this special 4 day program where you get tips on how to take great photographs. Brian already takes great photos, but we thought it would be interesting to see what Max has to offer. I like to take videos, so I am hoping to get some tips on improving my technique. The first thing I will have to learn is what kind of camera I have. He asked the 10 of us in the program about what camera they had and 9 people were able to discuss in detail the make and model of their camera, not to mention all of the numbers about the lenses they had brought with them. When it came to me I had no idea what kind of camera I have, Max had previously said he was a brand ambassador (what is that by the way?) for Cannon, so the first thing that came to mind was that it could be a Cannon. He was very happy with my answer. On the way back to our cabin Brian pointed out that my camera was in fact a Panasonic. Well, now I know.

Then there was the mandatory briefing about how to act in the Arctic followed by talks on our next 2 ports, Illusiat and Sisimuit.

I stopped by the Arts and Crafts display in the Expedition Lounge to see if there was anything that I could use to construct something during the cruise. Maybe a sewing project?

Next came trivia. Most of the passengers have already been on the ship for 13 days, and so I thought it would be difficult to find a team in search of new people, but as soon as we went into the Club, we were greeted by a team in search of new blood so we were all set. We are officially now part of the Two Timers.

We didn’t do well at all for the first round and there was a general feeling in our team that some of Olivia, the cruise director’s, questions were obscure, if not downright wrong. An example: What is the only country in the world that does not have any rivers? Well having spent the formative years of my life there, it had to be Malta. There are no rivers on Malta. It turned out that was incorrect. The answer was Saudi Arabia. No one got it right. According to Google (which Olivia says is her source) the following countries don’t have any rivers: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Djibouti, Vatican City, Monaco, Malta, The Bahamas, Maldives, Comoros, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu. Many of these countries were named by the other teams. However, I have to hand it to everyone present. No team complained, we just moved on to the next question. Olivia said Saudi Arabia, and Olivia is always right.

We struggled with several of the questions as time went on, and were quite convinced that we would have a very low score. However, the other teams must have struggled as well, and we ended up the winners. Go Two Timers! Our prize? Seabourn caps.

Heady with our early success, one of our team members suggested that we join the Build a Boat contest. Our boat in the contest on Queen Victoria many years ago was a thing of beauty but failed to win any prizes and we have shied away from the contest ever since, but here is the chance to redeem ourselves. Or not.

We set about searching the ship for potential items to be used in construction.

There were talks in the afternoon. Photography from Max.

And Elizabeth Pierce talked about Discovering the Great North: Human Habitation in the Eastern Arctic. A very relevant topic.

Next thing we knew it was time for the Expedition Recap and Briefing, followed by song from Olivia.

Then we had the Captain’s Welcome Reception.

Simon Bishop is our captain.

We have not sailed with him before. He said that only 500 ships had successfully sailed through the Northwest Passage. That didn’t sound like many. I checked that fact on AI. Indeed, according to AI a total of 465 complete maritime transits of the Northwest Passage have been recorded from Roald Amundsen’s first successful voyage in 1906 through the end of the 2025 navigation season. Are we the 466^th? Captain Bishop has made the sailing before on this ship, so that was reassuring. I just felt so excited to be part of this all.

Dinner in the Restaurant was the Signature dinner. All 6 courses were amazing. Here we are in the Arctic Circle off the coast of Greenland, and I was eating one of the best meals ever. When chef Christophe came over to chat, I had to ask him how he managed to get the lobster tails so tender and tasty. The secret is to poach them in seafood broth. Well it certainly works. They were totally delicious. Seabourn never fails to impress me.

As if the food wasn’t enough to make me happy, outside the windows of the Restaurant we could see icebergs. How cool is that.

Even though this is an expedition ship there is entertainment in the evenings. When we were on our charter flight I noticed that there was a young lady carrying a cello on to the plane. That cello turned out to be Sebastian, a mere 200 years old (that beats my piano which dates back to the late 1880s), and the young lady is Wendy Law. Wendy is absolutely amazing. Her playing is fantastic – from my favorite classics to a jaunty bossa nova. When she played The Swan, it brought tears to my eyes. She is so talented.

Yes, it has been a great sea day. No time to sit and relax and read, but it all just makes me so excited for our journey ahead.