August 8

Packin' it In

We awoke to the crunching and munching of the pack ice cruise scheduled for the early morning. Gary was up and at 'em, visiting the bridge to check on the day's developments. We enjoyed the pack ice going by the ship, noting a few of the floes had obvious evidence of recent animal habitation .. and yes, it was because of colored snow .

Captain spent time looking for the perfect spot .. which happened to be 81 degrees north .. to conduct the Polar Plunge. I opted for the Princess Plunge, washing my hair and heading out into the frigid air to give it an air dry. Brayden, accompanied by Ralph on the video camera, opted for the real Polar Plunge. His 12 honorary grandparents stood by, with cameras at the ready. First, though, there were any number of Polar Plunges parading in their various swimming costumes onto the zodiacs. It would make for a great episode of Project Runway .. some of the attire choice was .. er .. particularly choice.

The teen aged skinny girls had the greatest yells and were fighting it out to be the first of the two up the ladder back onto the zodiac and the comfort of dry towels. Those who enjoyed a greater body mass index tolerated the cold better than most (was that sufficiently PC?). Bikinis and more were on display. The only questionable plungers were the two executive chefs .. topped by toques .. who took the plunge in full chef attire. Hmmm .. fortunately, no heart-stopping responses to the chilly polar water for those two essential members of our ship's company. It was finally Brayden's turn to sample the waters. He demonstrated his mastery of 'Practical Applications of Logic' coursework from last semester, opting to jump right over the ladder off the zodiac. There was no doubt he'd be first back on the zodiac following the plunge. Good for him .. he earned the respect of the ship's company on behalf of the ARCTIC group.

We opted for a day off today, reading a little, sleeping a little and waiting for the afternoon adventures. We missed the blue whale spotting by the POOCHers. Instead of announcing the blue whale (who was on a different heading than the ship so the two paths diverged in short order), the afternoon expedition rolled in, with the prerequisite mist, and we were scheduled took the 6 pm zodiac transfer for a land hike in Sorjfjord (loosely translated as the Worry Fjord). This was the 'tell' for the afternoon adventure. It was a rocks and not much else kind of a walk .. complete with lots of wind chill on land and an in-your-face full frontal polar splash bath returning to the ship. In other words .. for me .. this fell in the 'one and done' category. We didn't return until close to 7:30, and hustled to join the Venetian Society party. Our reward was some caviar and champagne. Daniil was our Venetian host, and he valiantly spoke on behalf of the Italian owner. The resident Italians thought his pronunciation of the owner's name was (you guessed it) “not so bad” for a Lithuanian from the second largest city in that country.

We joined new friends from Australia for the Venetian dinner, featuring rack of lamb, osso bucco and sea bass. It was a delightful evening.

Tomorrow begins early again .. we're on the 8 am zodiac departure, weather and schedule permitting.