Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Northerly winds with snow showers, -2°C.

Note: Around this part of the trip, I started to really lose track of what day it was and whether or not I’d written in my journal. To further obscure the timeline, I was struggling with sea sickness when the ship moved into open water to the west, heading back south.

I can’t believe I slept almost totally since about 5:00pm yesterday, and maybe some of yesterday afternoon. My mind is really foggy.

Yesterday we stopped at Fuglefjorden on a tiny island that had once been covered by glacier. The piece of land was small— a rocky blip poking out of the water, covered in cantilevered snow that probably doubled its height. I sat in the snow again to marvel at the glacier that had once covered the land beneath us, now visible. In the deep snow that cascaded over the side of the island, I must’ve sat for almost an hour. The first zodiac to return us to the ship left the island shortly after I finally got back up again. Once again today, it was cold because of the wind and blowing snow. But, nestled into the deep snow, laying on the ground in my parka, I was completely comfortable.

After, we had lunch (I think, jasmine rice and curry) we set sail. I lasted until maybe 2:00 or 3:00pm, then went down again to my bunk. Happy I did at that very moment since the waves got a lot stronger. (At least, that’s how it felt to my land-locked blood.) We set sail for the western sea to head back southward to beat the northern storms. We secured everything in the cabin (making it ‘seafast’), otherwise anything unattached could have flown around because of the strength of the waves. Soon after, though, the guides came around and announced that there were walruses. Captain Mario killed the engines, and we climbed up on deck to watch.

Soon after, the ship started moving again, so I went back down to our cabin. By then we were on the edge of open sea.

Once again they roused us when the winds were right to raise the sails. They were able to raise the main staysail, lower main top mast staysail, lower topsail, upper topsail, and top gallant. A few of us stayed on deck just long enough to see the sails raised, take a photo, and then go back down to bed. From then on, the rocking was too much for me not to be in bed. I dozed through dinner, but Mary Ellen came back after with an apple for me to eat and recounted a story that Sarah had shared about some men who had gotten lost in the Arctic.

After, at about 9:00pm or so, I laid in bed and just enjoyed the feeling of the rocking ship for a while. Some time after 10:00pm, we were woken to come to the deck to see northern lights. I jumped out of bed and threw on my parka over my pajamas and climbed up to the deck. I passed Åshild and Kristen, who had been hanging out up there when I went out.

They left, and for a few magical moments, I was the only one on the deck of the ship. There were several spots of green - up and to the left, a couple out to the right. At one point, a green light was straight into the air behind some of the rigging. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t a glowing rope, but it soon changed shape and whipped across the sky. Gorgeous view of stars with sheets of green. Dark sky with no other lights around to obscure its blackness. Cold wind blowing through the fabric of my flannel pants and across my face. I loved every sensation in that moment. I smiled, looking up.

Then, a group of others came up, and the dancing light started to subside. I went back down to our cabin and slept until morning, but once again with several disturbing dreams.

We reached Kongsfjorden around midnight, and I heard that navigating the sea was a bit harrowing. Sarah and Marijn sat on the foredeck with flashlights to help Captain Mario navigate. We dropped anchor adjacent to Blomstrandbreen.

I awoke around 6:30am, disturbed by dreams, and came up to the lounge for breakfast. We ate, then prepared for zodiac excursions. I went on the sound recording/silent boat. (Because of this, I have I cannot recall how long we were actually out, but to me it felt too long. My hands and toes compeltely frozen, even under my mukluks and Neos. But we saw and heard many calvings off the glacier, Blomstrandbeen. We were surrounded by greese ice, pancacke ice, and other glacial ice. By the time we started to motor back to the Antigua with our small group, the ice had frozen around the zodiac. Sarah was driving and needed to pull up the motor frequently to de-ice and get us un-stuck. We hummed to try to warm ourselves and created the ‘Arctic Shivers’ choir.

*A zodiac tour returning to the Antigua from Kongsfjorden.*

*During our silent zodiac tour at Kongsfjorden.*

Soon after the tours, we had lunch of lentil soup, meat pies, and a Spanish tortilla.

Following lunch. we had a choice of a short hike or long hike next to the glacier. They moved the ship slightly to get a good landing point for the zodiacs, and we zodiac-ed to land. I took the upper hike, and I will never forget the depth of sky on the hike down.

This activity is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC) through a grant from The McKnight Foundation.