July 16th/Day 7: All or Puffin
Today we traveled to Alicehamna and Smeerenburg, "blubbertown", you guessed it, an old whaling station. Our landing was once again at 8:30 this morning, and was a bit of a somber affair as there are two graves spread out at this location. You are able to hike from the cabin to the cairn on top of the hill.
We were able to go inside this cabin; we saw a stove and a couple of bunks at one end as well, complete with mattresses. I'm not sure who stays here, but the firewood seemed fresh and it was very clean inside.
The boards used had markings as if they had been repurposed from various places. This one was the neatest IMO!
Once again we had an easy, uneventful hike to stretch out legs. There was not much to see, other than the carin itself and one of the graves. The other is viewed partway up the hill. There were some small birds nesting in the grave, so we all took care to give them space.
They have a pretty nice view!
There were plenty of activities for us to participate in as well! Photo contest #2 had ended and we were now on to #3 "All Things Arctic". They also opened up a raffle to win a beautifully decorated map of the cruise which was adorned by the ships carpenter, Irolo.
Each entry was $10 or you could buy them in packs and get an extra or few. We tossed in $30 or so, but many many other folks were going hog wild, buying 15-30; it was for a nice cause, all proceeds went directly to the crew fund and would be spent on team bonding activities ashore. We also had Disney Trivia in the lounge along with a surprise... they had added one last lecture from our special guests but this time instead of Joe, his wife Melody Malberg and Peggie Fariss took over. We were all very glad, as they had been adding tidbits to Joe's talks as well and we wanted to hear more from them. The talk was titled 'Women of Walt Disney Imagineering and sure it may have been to help sell the book, but it was great fun.
They shared all kinds of tales and tidbits as working as women imagineers and at least did not seem to hold back on some of the negatives such as trying to create work life balance. Melody was one of the first to successfully bid to do work share with another woman when she had her children, though she did eventually end up parting ways with the company to have more time with their family. They also told the story of how the book came to be in the first place, which is always fun to hear. Hopefully its in the preamble...
As soon as we were out of the theatre it was time once again to don our gear and head out to Smeerenburg. Here we would be seeing more walrus and the remains of the whale processing. The zodiacs took great care to stay downwind and we then slowly walked in groups up to them, one boat full at a time. We were eager to go, and happened to be in the first boat out.
Slowly the lazy tubs came into view:
Unlike our viewing a few days ago, we were much closer to them, and of course on land. They were also somewhat awake, and we saw many more swimming in the water than we had prior. Someone asked why some were sleeping with their tusks in the air, or in the ground.. and no one knows. Must be comfy!
Once our time was up and the next boat needed to have their time, we began to walk in a circle around the space. We walked for quite awhile, and came to another watery area with baby ducks waaaaaay off in the distance, which our guide had us stop to admire. After a few minutes I realized the guide was on her radio... and thought I caught something on the wind...
She smiled at me, and kept talking in French... I smiled back... and hers got bigger. After another minute or two, she announced that they had found a bear, and would be sending zodiacs back early for us. We could start walking back on our own now, if we wished, or we could spend more time with her and the du...
I started walking with purpose as Disney had trained me for.
When I got back to the beach, Alexandre was there on the radio and I saw the group that had been with the walrus making their way back as well. Slowly people trickled in and he kept repeating that they were putting more zodiacs in the water, and the group after us would be going to the bear first, and then come over to the whaling station. We waited... and waited... and waited. Finally one little zodiac made its way to us, and, thankfully, no one questioned Kyle or I when we hopped on first, or the next couple of people who had made it back to the beach first, but then it got kind of chaotic. Finally we had too many people on our zodiac, but we were ready to go and.. then we had to wait. Since they always travel in pairs, we were held.
Side note... up until now they had been VERY strict that ONLY 10 people guests could be on a zodiac at a time. On an excursion earlier they had even split Kyle and I up as the driver refused to go with any more people, and Alexandre apologized to me and had said the driver had the last word. Our driver had tried to protest, but they did not end up kicking anyone out.... so we went with 12. And went we did... as that rule went out the window as well after we sat there for another 5 or 10 minutes and no one else showed. We started slowly making our way to where the bear had been spotted, as we had to go slower with the number of folk aboard.