Life on the National Geographic Explorer

Each day, we would wake up to an itinerary that would include activities for the day. Many days it included hiking, kayaking, zodiac cruises, wildlife watching, city tours, and/or lectures by our National Geographic presenters.

Photo by Sven Lindblad

Zodiacs are inflatable boats used for landings and to get up close and personal to places that the larger, National Geographic Explorer could not, like the iceberg pictured above.

Photo by Sven Lindblad

Kayaks also allowed us to get up close to icebergs and coastlines. One of my favorite days was kayaking under bird cliffs while Thick-billed Murres were trying to teach their chicks how to fly - right over our heads!

Photo by Betsy Wilkening

The kayaks used in the Arctic are inflatable and almost impossible to flip over.

We enjoyed beautiful scenery wherever we hiked. Being in such a remote part of the world, we wondered if we were the first people to see some of the places we hiked. Our guides carried guns, as constant reminders that we were in polar bear country.

 Before we disembarked to hike in the Arctic on our first day, we had to have our clothes decontaminated. This meant that staff members vacuumed our clothes to remove any seeds or other products that could harm the Arctic environment. Here's Henning decontaminating my raincoat.

We also had to walk in some kind of disinfecting liquid before and after leaving the boat.

One day, a few brave souls and jumped into the freezing water! This is referred to as a "polar plunge". Apparently, if I also do this near Antarctica, I can become a "bi-polar plunger". I guess it's good to have goals... :-)

 

Photo by Michael Nolan

In between adventures, we were fed excellent fare. The boat was staffed with specialists in bread making, soups, desserts, and entrees. We always had fresh fruit and mid-afternoon was tea time. It was nice to have someone else do the cooking for a few weeks!

Dinner Entree

Tea Time Treats

Dinning in the Bridge with Steve McLean

Since we were considered semi-staff, Betsy and I stayed in the staff cabins. Here are some picture of our room. Notice how the shelves and cabinets are designed to keep objects from rolling around the ship.

This was our bathroom. We called the shower/toilet combo a "shal-lette".