Rockin’ & rollin’ in the Bering Strait

We’re now well into our 3 sea-days having left the sea-ice behind in the Beaufort Sea at around 1:30am this morning, and passing Point Barrow mid-morning. We’re now well and truly in the Bering Strait, with Alaska visible in the distance on our left – we can’t yet see Russia.

The sea is choppy with reasonable winds (can’t get to the Bridge to check the data), but the 2-3m swell is ensuring that the KK is now rolling up to 15 degrees to port and then to starboard, and possibly more at times. Although familiar, it is still uncomfortable, particularly when I look out the cabin window and see the horizon suddenly move upwards, and then down again.

As for previous journeys on this ship, Phenergan is my friend. Although making me a little drowsy from time to time, it ensures that I can at least function, and I’m not forced to stay in the cabin. But it is certainly quiet around the ship – and of course going outside is really not a good idea in these conditions!

I’ve not managed to get to any presentations today – the Auditorium is sleep-inducing at the best of times (gentle rocking from side to side in a dark room), let alone when dosed up on Phenergan. Perhaps tomorrow. But I was on the Bridge this morning, taking photos of the spray over the bow, and catching a rainbow in the spray … small pleasures!

The Bering Sea is an area with lots of marine life. We did we did see numerous whale blows last night before we entered the sea-ice – probably from bowhead whales. But finding anything now while we’re rolling like this will be challenging to say the least!

Tomorrow (Sunday) we expect to be in Providenya (Russia) in the late afternoon – once we’ve cleared Immigration the current plan is for us to wander around the town for a few hours. It will be good to get onto a non-moving surface!

Having crossed the dateline, we’ll “lose” Monday 19th September, and will then have 2 days of excursions when we backtrack to towns along the eastern coast.

That’s it for now – just a short post to keep you up to date with our travels. Now if I can just stop the mouse from sliding to port and starboard for a while, I’ll get back to editing photos :-) :-) :-) .