Up early and ready to go as the second group to shore. The weather is very nice, 58 degrees so one less layer this morning. This morning’s hike was about 3km with a 150m elevation change. We head toward the Heany glacier, across mostly firm land but crossing several small streams. I was last in the group, and the guide kept looking back to check on me. I realized I do not have the stamina I used to have, and it was not easy to keep up. The faster hikers were far ahead of us. Barney mostly stayed with me, but I told him to go ahead. Another woman I brought up the rear. We made it to the glacier, entered around a quicksand area (where some folks apparently came out of their boots, what a mess), and went up onto the ice. I went about 15’ onto the ice and called it good, while Barney hiked up a bit farther. A few of us were ready to head back, and a guide took us back by a completely different route, with much more crossing of water in places that were wider and faster, so some folks were struggling with the crossings. It felt like a bit of a slog to get back to the beach and head back to the ship. We were both sweaty, as it was 20 degrees warmer than t was in Antarctica. One less layer this afternoon for sure.
After lunch, into the Zodiacs again to head to Ocean Harbor, and area with mostly fur seals and some history. As we landed on the rocky beach (all beaches here are rocky, no sand), there were many young fur seals all around us, and a few King penguins. The fur seals were all young pups or yearlings judging by their size. Some of them, usually the older ones, barked at us and stared to advance, but they quickly retreated when we use the “ack-ack” or clap. They are practicing defending their territory. I enjoyed watching them raise their heads and curl around to watch us or something else. Some were just laid out flat for a big nap, others were on the move. We hiked to a rusty equipment graveyard by an old whaling station, with huge pieces of abandoned equipment half-sunk in the marshy land. We went into a small cabin, about 15’x20’, with some reindeer antlers and a few artifacts of the former residents. It is hard to imagine living in such isolation during these nice summer months, much less during a brutal winter. Because of the warmth we put our black coats in the backpack and opened the orange parka to break the wind, eventually tying that around our waists as well. I have always overheated easily and this is quite an adjustment from the earlier weather. We hiked through some marshy grass areas, kind of like a bog, and I was very glad I brought my walking sticks to give me balance and stability, as it would have been easy to slip. Among the grasses there were a large number of fur seals … I wondered why they were so far inland, it seems odd to see them up against green grass instead of against the gray rocks. We hiked up over a ridge, along another soft path, and come to a pretty but small waterfall. One lone fur seal pup was watching us carefully, looking confused by this whole group of people focused on him, though we kept our distance of course. Returning back through more boggy areas, we stopped by a graveyard whose earliest resident was buried in about 1840, likely a sealer as the seal hunting came before the whale hunting. We headed back to the landing site, past more seals playing and prodding and poking at each other, they remind me of my brothers when they were kids. Even though the hike was not long, we are pretty tired because the marshiness of the land made walking that much harder.
We decided to try out the hot tub jacuzzi on the stern of the ship which has an infinity edge. As we were fairly early back, we could watch the zodiacs returning from the long hikes. It was incredibly windy and cold up on the 8th deck, and we had to tie our robes to an upright so they would not blow away. The water was warm and lovely, and we stayed about 15 minutes, and got a good dose of cold as we emerged and went to get our robes. Barney headed back to the room ad I went to try to sauna. They have two saunas, a tropic one with higher humidity, and a drier Nordic one. I tried both and liked the Nordic one better … someday it would be cool to have a sauna in our house. Time for showers, then Barney took a nap while I read the Alexander von Humboldt biography I brought, a fascinating story of man whose influence was truly global and far ahead of his time in the way that he looked at nature in a connected way, with the emotional effects being as important as the data. He profoundly influenced generations of scientists, writers including Thoreau, and especially Darwin.
We had a nice dinner, chatted with a couple we met the night before, he recently retired form the State Department after many years of postings all over. He described what it was like in Kiev during the breakup of the Soviet Union, a truly tumultuous time. At the time, Ukraine has the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, imagine how things might be different today had they not agreed to give up the nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees from the US, Russia, the UK, and France. I think some people today imagine we gave weapons and support to Ukraine these past few years just because we were being nice, rather than recognize that we made an agreement for security which we needed to honor. Today, there is no honor among the thieves running the US government who are thinking only of their own power and wealth.
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