Some days we hiked to camp and the boat took our gear. Some days we boated to camp and then hiked after setting up camp. It was a lot of work setting up camp so I really liked the camps where we had 2-3 nights. After a good dinner and breakfast at the lodge we hiked to our first camp and were happy to see our gear on the shore (above the tide line).
One of the many questions I asked the guides: do you have a group shelter.? They said yes but did not clarify that they bring a palace. Definite advantage of boats carrying the gear. This thing weighed a ton and was huge. It easily fit all nine of use when the weather sucked. It also had a magic barrier. The bugs were really bad in places but they would not go in the TIPI even when the door was open.
We did a day hike after setting up camp.
Polar Bear Watch
This is Anthony doing his one hour stint of Polar Bear watch. We had to keep watch all night so we each had an hour stint starting at 10:00 PM. Polar Bears hunt humans, we are in their food chain so keeping an eye out was pretty important. Our time changed every night as we went an hour later than the previous night. This experience went from miserable to very peaceful.. Miserable was the windy, rainy nights. Fortunately most of the nights had good weather and the watch was peaceful.
If we saw a Polar Bear we were told to wake up the guides. If urgent we had whistles to wake up everyone. Three of us had flares that we would shoot at the bear to scare it away (only when the guides told us fire them). One guide had a rifle just in case. He had military experience with the Gurkha’s.
Leann geared up for our first boat transfer, she is thrilled.
There was a great bonus to our first boat ride, a fin whale.
They are also called Finbacks, finner, razorback, flathead and greyhound of the sea. Fin Whales are second only to Blue whales in length. They are up to 82 feet long and can weigh up to 160,000 pounds.
HAPPY TRAILS, STEVE