The call came over the ships tannoy at 7am that a polar bear had been spotted on the pack ice on the port side at nine o’clock so we rushed up to get a glimpse. The bear had disappeared but shortly after another was spotted on the pack ice. Unfortunately no photos, as it was too far away, but we got a great view through the Nikon binoculars that have been provided to each passenger.
We then went down for breakfast at 7.30am and the tour leader gave us some information about how the day would pan out and the team of experts introduced themselves. They were a very impressive bunch of seasoned guides, historians, writers, photographers and archaeologists whose expertise was in wildlife, history, photography, the Inuit culture and we even have an artist in residence. The Chief Scientist of the Northwest Passage project from the University of Rhode Island gave a brief talk on what the project was doing and the many experts that they had as part of the team. In addition to the scientific side they would be making a feature length documentary of the project. The scientists and their students will be on the boat for 20 days so will do the trip we are doing and return the other way with the next group of fare paying passengers.
After breakfast we had to do the mandatory lifeboat drill and were able to go into the lifeboat to see how it looked inside. As the boat was a Russian Cold War vessel, all the writing around the boat is in Russian and in the mud room (this is where you exit the boat to go ashore in the zodiacs) there is a massive long range antenna used for more sinister purposes during the Cold War period.
As we joked about not wanting to have to use the lifeboats, at 11.43am, there was an enormous scrapping noise and the ship juddered to a halt. We had grounded. After a short while, the tour leader came over the radio saying that the Captain had said that there was no breach of the ship’s hull and he was trying to get the ship back afloat using the thrusters.
Apparently, we were not in danger, and the sister ship is not too far away but at this time it was unclear what it meant for our trip.
Our intended destination for our first landing by Zodiac was the Astronomical Society Islands and the map below shows where we hit the rocks.
The tour leader was not sure if and when we will have to leave the ship but he said that after a grounding the Maritime Authorities will not allow the ship to continue without a full inspection of the hull.
Therefore, Day Two continued with the Captain trying to get the ship off the rocks.
Apparently, this was the first time that One Ocean had picked up passengers in the Pelly Bay Area and the route the ship was taking was not one they had used before so it was down to the Captain to approve whether or not we took a particular route through the many islands that the ship had to go through to exit Pelly Bay into the Gulf of Boothia.
We were then told that we would be transferred to the sister ship, Akademik Sergey Vavilov, which would be coming to pick us up the next day and take us back to Pelly Bay. The Akademik Ioffe had to go to be inspected and repaired. The holiday for us was over as the sister ship was taking the next group of people for their tour.
Not a good way to end Day Two.
Oh MY Gosh!! What an adventure and it is only Day Two!! This is better than a novel. WIll they survive? Or be eaten by polar bears? Or have to go in that dodgy life boat?? And here I was thinking that the “cruise” looked like something we would be interested in, hmmm……..