Feeling virtuous after attending the stretch class again this morning, I enjoyed a Croque Madame for breakfast, then off to get ready. Putting on our long underwear, waterproof pants, and muck boots for the last time, we went kayaking in the fjord, which was relaxing and so nice. A few times Barney and I stopped paddling and just talked, something it can be hard to do in our busy lives. We are both so grateful and keenly aware of how fortunate we are to have good health, a wonderful family, good friends, interesting work and volunteer communities, and especially the resources to be able to enjoy trips like this. After the kayaking, we took a final Zodiac ride with Dan, seeing many guillemots and caribou antlers on the rocky coast, but no caribou. Caribou and Reindeer are the same species, reindeer being the domesticated version, caribou the wild version. The male caribou drop their antlers in the summer, but the females keep theirs into the winter, so Dan asked us if Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer was male or female, and it seemed clear that Rudolf was really Rudolfina!
Back for a nice lunch, and we sat with Eva and Boris and had some interesting discussions about new things we had learned on this trip, even though they have been here many times, they still learn new things. Then a briefing about the complex day tomorrow, when most of us leave but some folks stay on the ship to go to Nome via the Northwest Passage, and others continue on all the way to Japan, a journey that takes 69 days and costs a minimum of $108,000, truly an epic trip. After that, the dreaded task of packing. We are dividing our clothes into two suitcases, one for the four day road trip in Iceland, and one we will leave at the hotel while we are on the road. Barney attended a really good briefing by the captain about the planning and construction of this wonderful ship, which is unique among icebreaker extradition ships of this type. He downloaded some wonderful wildlife photos from the shared computers, did his packing, and then we went upstairs to our last cocktail hour and briefing, and dinner. It feels hard to say farewell to this trip, to the amazing places and people and wildlife we have seen, to being taken care of by a wonderful staff, to learning so much every day from the talented naturalist staff. I am so gad that we did this trip.
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