Our first stop today was Cape Hay on Baylor Island. It was too windy and the swell too high to allow for a zodiac ride, so we viewed the birds along the cliffs from the comfort of the ship. There were thousands of Brünnich's guillemot also called Thick-billed Murre. They are known as the penguins of the Arctic, but unlike penguins, they can fly as well as dive and swim. We weren't close enough and the birds were too fast to get a picture, so I cheated and snapped one from my Audubon app
Our second stop was Dundas Harbour on Devon Island. A bear was spotted by the "bear team", so on shore activities were cancelled, we were however able to do a zodiac tour. Unfortunately, we didn't spot any bears from the zodiacs. We did see some beautiful ice bergs and a family of birds. You can see another zodiac on the other side of this berg
Some buildings survive from 1924 when the site was used as Canadian outpost.
Our Zodiac driver told us that the area around Dundas Harbour is currently being used by NASA as a training site for future Mars astronauts.
I'll say goodnight with the first Arctic sunset we've seen. It's been cloudy every other evening. The picture was taken at 11:15 pm it's 12:40 am now and it's still not dark.
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