Bearded seal

Day 5. Lie in this morning as we’d headed to the pack ice overnight. Lying in bed you can hear it scraping along the side of the ship. Felt better this morning so hopefully the cold is clearing at last. Morning spent in the lounge looking out at the sea ice, taking photos of the ivory gulls and other sea birds on the ice and catching up on photos. Started to have an interesting lecture on whales which was interrupted by another polar bear sighting on the pack ice, it was a long way off but did get up to have a walk around while we were watching it. Had a bit of a sleep after lunch but we were out on deck enjoying some hot chocolate with rum that the crew had prepared when we went pasted a bearded seal lying on the ice. Not long after that we had a sighting of a bowhead whale. These are extreamly rare with only about 200-250 in the entire area we are sailing in. They believe these whales can live to around 200+ years old making it the oldest thing on the planet. Spent a bit of time on the bridge today which was nice, and we ended up around 80° 41’ north at the highest point.