31.08.2023 Thursday, Conningham Bay and Bellot Strait
Today there is to be some small boat cruising, this means people going out on the Zodiacs to see wild life. The place chosen for this activity is Conningham Bay. We watched the early scouts go out to see what they could find. Our group Artic Foxes was one of the first out at 7am. No way! we didn't go! It was bitterly cold at that time and we saw them when they came back absolutely frozen, but they did see 7 Polar Bears feeding on seals and whale. In fact they were sharing food. Other stories we heard later were that people got very wet, cold and it was difficult to take photos. Also one zodiac got stuck on rocks near a bear and another sounded as though its engine was failing. Some people not happy, others ill. However we did get to see a very large Polar Bear from the Expedition Lounge deck 10. It walked round from the bay along a hillside then came down to the water walked in and swam away.
The other highlight for today is going through the Bellot Strait. This narrow channel with a strong current was discovered by a French man called Bellot, when he was on an expedition to find the Franklin expedition, but of course he didn't. The strait is 25km, 16miles long and separates Somerset Isle to the North from the Murcheson promontory of the Boothia Penninsula to the South, which is the northern most point of the mainland Americas. It is 2km 1.2miles wide and links the Gulf of Boothia, Prince Regent inlet and Brentford Bay to the East and Peel Sound and Franklin Strait to its West. We were told that we had to have a special Pilot on board to be able to tell the Captain when the currents were right for our ship to pass through. The currents run at 9knots which is half the speed of the ship. So early afternoon we could go through. We dressed up in warm gear and went to deck 11 (which had been like a skating rink in the morning). We stood it out the whole way through lovely strata either side. We also saw something suspicious. a small boat with 3 people in who appeared to be putting something large and white in the back of the boat. Several people with long lenses took pictures of it and things got even more suspicious when it saw us getting closer and took off at great speed back to a black boat with white superstructure bristling with aerials. We couldn't see any identifying features on the boat. The reason we used the Bellot Strait is because there was no ice in it, as there was ice in the Peel Strait. The ship may have got stuck.
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