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Arctic

An area of the glacier has broken off to form what looks like an entrance to a cave. This area could collapse at an time cause a calving of the ice and a small tsunami of water away from the glacier. A dangerous area to be too close to it.

A rare look at small microcosm of the underside of a glacier.

Another angle looking at the glacier in the same area.

A floating ice berg is 90% under the waterline and only 10% is visible above the water line.

Our expedition leader told us in a few minutes all zodiacs would turn off their motors. All communication between zodiacs, the mother ship will cease for 15 minutes.

In the stillness of the Arctic we floated past this mass of blue ice.

In the distance one could hear the calving of the Negribreen glacier, the crashing of the ice into the frozen ocean. Overhead we could hear occasional birds flying around us. A seal could be heard. It was an incredible 15 minutes of silence in the world that is constantly making noise. This was total silence.

Our ship the Ocean Diamond sits motionless in the silence of the world. Stopped in time in the frozen arctic ice.

This magnificent glacier of silhouetted ice floated past us in a moment of time.

Close up look of mother nature at her best in shimmering beauty.

When the engines again were turned on and we began our journey back to the mother ship I mentioned to our expedition guide how sharp much of the ice was as we traversed above the water. At that exact minute I heard the sudden crash of ice and then air coming out from under water from our zodiac. I looked up at every one and in a loud voice yelled, "we have a puncture". Then I asked, "does anyone remember the song from Titanic?" The looks on several faces was priceless.

I was then told by our expedition guide that the zodiac has 7 chambers within the underside of the zodiac. If there weas a problem there are a number of zodiac within a short radius that could rescue us. "Or we could swim back to the mother ship". Maybe you could do 4 strokes in that cold water only. "The problem was mute.

We pulled up a piece of a glacier floating nearby in the water. It was centuries old and cold!

Ice balancing on a glacier.

Blue ice

The air temperature was freezing. They filled the pool with ocean water around 25 degrees, and lifted ice into the pool at the aft of the ship. That is me standing there ready to jump into that freezing water.

Yes that is the back of my head in the water and I cannot wait to get out of it. it was cold. So I can now say that I have done a polar swim in the Arctic in 2022 and in the Antarctic in 2019... both ends of the earth I have swam in both the Antarctic and the Arctic oceans.

Arctic Sunset

A fin whale has a sleek, streamlined body with a V-shaped head. It has a tall, hooked dorsal fin, about two-thirds of the way back on the body, that rises at a shallow angle from the back.

A fin whale is a filter feeder and hunts by swimming with its mouth open towards its prey, taking in large amounts of water as well as food.

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