Much can be said about Bellot Strait for what is a relatively short (15 nautical mile) channel. It gets wild when the current starts flowing and provided fun of epic proportions. I will say much more about Bellot in a later post but for now suffice to say that it took us three attempts to get through during which we perfected the current assisted "Dodge & Drift" technique. While things were looking successful on our third attempt to get through unassisted, conveniently the Canadian Coast Guard ship Larsen showed up escorting a Russian cruise ship and a private megayacht (rumoured to be owned by Ringo Starr). Small wonder the latter didn't sink as it got badly bumped around by ice drifting back into the opening made by the icebreaker and the cruise ship.
We waited until the icebreaker returned and made a less current affected path for us. Video of that mayhem to follow. Bellot was also where we saw all the polar bears, three at the same time at the Eastern end and a single smaller bear on large piece of ice at the West end. They were all extremely well fed and showed scant interest in eating us for desert (a happy outcome).
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