Here I come!

What a day. I woke up to fantastic sunshine and an announcement told us that we were approaching our first polar bear. And so it went on - serial bears. Every meal and every cup of coffee had to be abandoned as we met one bear after another - @ 8 or so.
The ship was provided with electric engines which could be used to shimmy slowly sideways towards the bears without disturbing them too much. Eventually they were either overcome with curiosity or wariness and moved closer or further away if we were getting within their comfort zone. If the latter were the case then the ship was moved away.
Congratulations to the Quark crew who found the bears, and to the captain and his excellent control of the ship.
As you can imagine, after that everyone was really high, and everything got noisier!

If you want to see more photos of this amazing trip go to
http://gallery.me.com/lizziebea#100161