Last night we were told that this morning's activities wouldn't start until 9:00am, so we asked for breakfast to be later than usual so we could have a sleep-in! After all, we are on holiday.
We anchored about 10km from Dawes Glacer, near the number 1
campsite on this map. The more adventurous souls (not us)
set off for a long (about three hours) paddle toward Dawes Glacier. We were booked on the
short
afternoon paddle, so we had the morning on the ship.
One of our passengers wasn't well enough to enjoy the more physical activities, so the bosun, Rebecca Maier, organised to take her close to the glacier in the skiff. There's room for 12 people in the skiff, and since it would be such a shame to waste all that space, it was offered to anyone else who was interested. Knowing that we'd not get that close on our afternoon paddle, and not expecting to have another opportunity to get that close to a glacier before the end of the cruise, we jumped at the chance.
Along the way we passed our intrepid kayakers, who'd managed to get surprisingly close. Not as close as we got (a few hundred metres), but we did have the advantage of a 50hp motor to push us along. Rebecca did a great job guiding us through the floating ice toward the face of the glacier.
We got back a little (well, much) later than expected - we were late for lunch. What was supposed to be no more than 90 minutes was actually closer to three hours. Fortunately we had enough fuel to make it all the way back - it would have been hard work rowing ...
After lunch, the second group of adventurers set off in kayaks for
the glacier. A little later we set off for what was supposed to be
an hour and a half of gentle paddling, but turned out to be nearly
two and a half hours of damned hard work. Our guide, Aarrun, was a
slave-driver and didn't know the meaning of take it easy
.
While we were out, Rebecca took a second group out in the skiff.
Most of us pulled out of the evening kayak trip - we were all worn out from the day's activity - but a few hardy souls perservered. After dinner, what started as a small group up on the bridge deck enjoying the calm of the evening, slowly became a much larger and more rowdy crowd. By about 10:00m though the crowd had mostly dispersed for a good night's sleep.