We cruised from Cape Dorset to Akpatok Island from yesterday noon to this afternoon. We arrived at 4PM, and started the Zodiac tours at 4:30. So, the morning was breakfast and a lecture, and then lunch and a movie in our room for the afternoon. Lunch had a German theme, so sausage, sauerkraut, spaetzle, and of course, beer!
[A nice German lunch! No, I didn’t have both beers, one was Theresa’s!]
Akpatok is geologically anomalous to the rest of the islands we have seen. Instead of being 3-4 billion year old gneiss, it was 500 million year old limestone, built up from an ocean floor when this part of the crust was at the equator. So, there are lots of fossils from long extinct animals on a tropical ocean floor. Truly, the rock formation was incredible to view. The pictures only give hints at how amazing it looked!
[Akpatok Island. Note the very level layers, which went the length of the island.]
[A panorama of the island, from and with Zodiacs.]
Much to the dismay of our Expedition Leader, a geologist, the landscape was interrupted by these odd furry white things. The rest of us reveled in seeing more polar bears!! I think we saw 5 today, including a mother and two cubs, and a few strolling along the “beach”. By beach, you have to envision a stone or gravel road suitable for a construction zone or mine! Pretty, this beach is not!! It was rather hard to get a good zoomed in picture, so I played with cropping, to keep these from getting too grainy. I hope the picture quality isn’t too bad.
[A polar bear!]
[A mother and two cubs. The second one is behind mum.]
[A walk along the beach. He can smell us, hear us, and probably see us, but can’t make out what we are.]
[Theresa with a polar bear. See the green spot just over her shoulder? The bear is on the beach right below it.]
[Momma bear with cubs again. (We went back.)]
[Looking for tasty birds. (Not approved by PETA, I’m sure!)]
But, at the one end, there were perhaps 200 birds in the water, and good number flying. There were even some slow ones on the shore, not paying enough attention to their surroundings. We watched while this one bear snuck up behind and killed and ate the birds (about 2-3 times). Although he laid down to eat it, only took 3 minutes, so he must have been bored. Polar bears rarely bother to eat the birds because it usually takes more effort to get them than the energy they provide. Plus they usually get away, so it isn’t worth it at all.
The birds were some sort of guillemot (Brunnich’s Guillemot), had chicks, and they floated, poked their heads under, and then periodically dove under for some fish. When they took off, it was the least graceful take off! They flailed their wings, splashing and making a ruckus, and finally started moving forward and getting out of the water. It was like watching a heavy jet taking off on a hot summer day from a high airport.
[Mom, Dad, baby, and weird Uncle Lou who hangs around!]
[Look! A fish!! (No, we can’t see it either…just the guillemot ducking under looking!)]
[The sun was setting as we cruised back to the ship.]
No comments:
Post a Comment