Canadian Arctic - Baffin Bay

 After Dundas Harbour, the ship sailed into Baffin Bay, a "marginal" sea of the Arctic Ocean.  It is not navigable most of the year because of ice cover and the high density of floating ice and icebergs in the area.  Ploughing through sea ice was one of the highlights of this cruise - it was a most amazing experience!

We were originally going to visit Grise Fjord on Ellesmere Island, our most northern reach on this cruise.  But the threat of sea ice coming down from the north prevented the captain from taking the risk of going through the opening in the ice but not being able to come back out if that opening closed up.  He showed us ice charts galore to explain the risks - we could only trust him to do the right thing.

There was a lot of disappointment about the not being able to visit Grise Fjord, but this was more than made up for by the alternate cruise through the sea ice in Baffin Bay plus a bonus landing on an actual ice floe after pushing through the sea ice.  Everyone was on a high as even many of the expedition team members have never set foot on an ice floe before.  Thanks to our fearless leader Scott McDougall for thinking up the idea and actually finding a suitable ice floe.

The ice floe experience was beyond our expectations.  It was absolutely stunning on the ice looking down on the bay and seeing the ice underneath not to mention cruising into the bay on our zodiacs.  It was incredibly beautiful!  We were also surrounded by mist making it even more ethereal.  Kudos to the zodiac drivers who were able to speed through the mist to bring us back safely on the ship.

Baffin Bay was the beginning of our encounter with huge icebergs - here is one reflecting the setting sun as we sailed into the bay

This one reminded me of a Lawren Harris painting

This iceberg must have been around for a while!

Look at the beautiful colours on it - reminds me of the candy we get around Christmas

Another Henry Moore...but you would never believe the one in the photo below is the same iceberg-

 it looks the balleen in the whale's mouth!

Everyone was on deck to watch the ship cruise through the first sea ice.  Here are two videos  - they by no means do justice to the experience.  I was also too busy taking photos to spend a lot of time on the videos.

Watch the Ocean Endeavour cutting through sea ice   https://youtu.be/fatBizFiE-8 

https://youtu.be/rxkHauL0hYc

Cruising through sea ice

Sea-horse?  Or one of Snow White's dwarfs?

The ice floe that we landed on

View from the high point

Watching the zodiac cruise in was even better than being in the zodiac

Another giant ice floe that we saw from the zodiac - won't be so easy to land on this one

Waves crashing out from under

An ice floe we saw from the deck

Sunset on the ocean was always a treat 

That was one of the most exciting day on the cruise!