Monday 22 August 2016

CRUISING THE BERING STRAIT AND THE DIOMEDES

CRUISING THE BERING STRAIT AND THE DIOMEDES

We were on deck by 8:30 this morning as we cruised by the Diomedes Islands in the Bering Strait. We are heading for the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean leaving the Pacific Ocean behind. The two islands that make up the Diomedes are unusual in that the Little Diomede is in the US State of Alaska and the Big Diomede is the easternmost part of Russia. The International Dateline runs between the two islands - so that today in Little Diomede is tomorrow in Big Diomede.
The islands are home to millions of sea birds and many of them were following the ship. I saw Least Auklets, Crested Auklets, Thick Billed Murres, Short Tailed Shearwaters, Black Legged Kittiwakes. It is only 4 degrees Celsius with very strong winds from the north but we have seen the sun! The waves are huge and spectacular and the ship is remarkably steady.
I met a young woman from Pond Inlet, part of the Expedition Team, who said that I should see lots of birds there. We'd have tried our hands at Trivia and actually the two of us did quite well today. Our next activity is another Art Class. We are off to dine at Prego, the Italian specialty restaurant, tonight. Oh, and on our prowls around the ship, we saw another room in the process of being sanitized so Norwalk is still alive and well on board. We are being extremely obsessive with our hand washing.

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