Today I felt lucky. After sharing a pint of whiskey with three others, I didn’t have a headache. We spent the morning sailing through fog up the east coast of Devon Island to Coburg Island, having a talk about the lifecycle of the P.B. as they’ve come to be called, and about sea ice. By the afternoon, the fog had cleared and we went on a zodiac cruise in bright sunshine on a flat calm sea. The murre colonies of the Coburg Island cliff faces are a black and white encrustation on every precarious ledge. The eggs are very pointed as they are laid onto the bare rock. After three weeks feeding, the chicks are “encouraged” into the water by the males, the female leaves and the boys all go on a seven week swim. Many fail to make this initiation, especially if they are on an inland colony. (Yes, really!) Other birds nesting there are glaucous gulls. The noise is significant, from the 500,000 individuals, whose nests are many generations old, sometimes 15” deep, with a little bundle of grey feathers occasionally visible. We cruised for a further hour round ice floes before returning to drinks on the aft deck. Only it had all gone by the time I got there. After dinner, Martin entertained the bar with Superstitions of the Sea, before a group of us settled in for a session. Maggie is a retired CEO who now chairs six international groups that work to improve water conservation. She lives in Manhattan for ease of access to airports and he lives in Wakefield (see Monday 31st July). Stan was able to name the blokes we’d seen in the bar where we had nachos and beer. This couple are very clever and articulate. And funny.