When I first traveled in the Arctic, I thought I saw it all. I saw guillemots and fulmars nesting on cliffs that reached above the clouds, and walrus and seals resting on ice floes that seemed as common as yachts in Chesapeake Bay. Arctic foxes and the occasional polar bear in the distance seemed to be the norm, but I never thought I would see a polar bear as close up as I did today. Sure, I had heard of stories of people who had seen the "ice bears" up close in Canada or on some other trip by land or by tundra buggy. But today when Ralph made the announcement that there was a curious bear just ahead of the ship, I thought, "yeah, probably just another polar bear that won't come very close to the ship."
So I went down to my cabin, put on some more clothes and reloaded my camera for a long-lens encounter with the "bear of the day," and there he was! I looked out toward the port hole of my forward, ice-level cabin, and there was this massive thing - a mammal with a big white nose, curious and giant and wet and staring at me in his potato-chip colored coat, and I suddenly realize that this is a BIG male polar bear looking straight into my window - right into my port hole, watching me put on my coat to go up out on deck to see it! So I thought to myself, "OK, remain calm, there is just a big huge nosey polar bear looking at you through three inches of glass," but I couldn't help but get a little excited. So I said to my cabin mate Peter, in a controlled voice that only a polar bear in the port hole could command, "Hey, there is a polar bear in the port hole, could you possibly take a picture…" And he did. I am staying up all night…
