Icebergs at last! (day 7, 6-15-12)

Hey Everybody,

I'm getting an early start on this tonight....it's not quite 11pm. I came down to my room around 9:30pm to wash a few items of clothing in the sink and decided to stay here in this quite spot and catch you up with the day's activities.

We had two zodiac excursions today. The first to a mining camp at Ny-London, which was walking or hiking only because there wasn't much snow. Ny-London has "marble" that has metamorphosed from old limestone. But it turns out it cannot be mined because it breaks so easily.

The second stop - a massive glacier (Lilliehook) was the highlight of my day and far too short, but we have roughly 18 hours at sea before we get to our next stop, which is often referred to as a "polar bear highway". I'll let you know if we find any out there. Hope so!

During the first excursion at the old mining camp we had our closest viewing opportunity so far for reindeer. And at the second zodiac outing we had our best opportunity yet to see a Bearded Seal. We were so close we could see the curl of his whiskers!

But the ice was the star of the show! For those of you who eat (or remember) Rice Krispies cereal that's the easiest way to describe how the ice sounds. We were surrounded by ice and the sound is constant. It gets a little louder after the glacier calves because the fallen piece creates a wave that then triggers the ice.

This big blue iceberg is what I've been so eager to see. We've mostly been limited to seeing them in the distance if we see them at all. Not today! This afternoon the ship cruised 28 miles into the fjord before we hopped on the zodiacs to get a closer look. The glacier itself has about a 3.5-4mi semi-circular front.

How cool is this iceberg?!!!!!

One lone zodiac in front of the glacier....and not as close as it seems.

We saw no bears, but did spot several Minke Whales. This is an area that Beluga Whales sometimes frequent, but we saw none today. Of course we were distracted by blue ice, calving, and a bearded seal....and belugas tend to stay near the shoreline to rub themselves on the land. We just weren't watching.

It was so warm today....nearly 6* Celsius later in the day. We didn't need parkas, hats or gloves for walking. Even the afternoon zodiac trip was warm. Speaking of Celsius.....I really need to brush upon my conversions! I can manage well enough in the metric world, but it still feels like a foreign language. I think it's time to make it automatic.

I have made some brief videos on the camera because I know that photos cannot do this place justice. If I figure out how to post from the iPad app I will add a couple to the blog later.

It's beautiful here & everyday brings some variation to the sky and mountain ranges. We never know what sort of animal tracks we might find in the snow. This afternoon we saw a TINY jellyfish while we were out in the zodiacs to play in the ice. And we saw an Arctic Cod. It's just a fish & no big deal except that we've been on the water for a week now and it's the first fish we have seen even though we know the birds eat them.

Today I found myself wondering if it will be strange to see night again after a month of solid daylight..... That's all for now. Thanks for stopping by. More soon.

Day 6 (6-14-12)

Let me begin with a disclaimer! I wrote these posts during the trip as I said, today when I tried to post Day 6 -- well, technology won! My blog app showed that it posted successfully, but it doeesn't appear on my blog. And it is gone from my iPad....lost in cyberspace forever! No great harm done, of course, but I sure don't remember exactly what I wrote. So, here are a few pics....

So, we travelled back up to the north overnight. Thus, our first zodiac outing today was a cruise, not shore landing. I kept trying to convince my guide to let me get out of the zodiac to test the ice, but she insisted that was unwise. Anyway, here we are in the zodiac, landed on the edge of the ice pack. It looked like we landed on the moon - not that I've ever been to the moon, but I bet it would look as wild!

We went beyond 80* North this morning: 81* (when you round up). Still, I couldn't convince anybody to go all the way to the north pole with me. Never mind that it's dangerous (think hungry bears). Never mind that from this point forward lies nothing but ice! There are no open routes right now. I guess I will have to be satisfied knowing that we are the first people to get this far this season & that it is highly unlikely that another person is present between our location & the North Pole.

An interesting fact about all this ice & snow is that you are only looking at sea ice - not glacial. We were told this is all from the winter just past with the creative hands of wind & currents. That knowledge makes it all the more incredible!

Our ship on the open side of the pack ice. We were lucky to find a small channel for the zodiac, so we could really explore the pack ice. We got stuck a time or two, but never seriously. The guides know their stuff!

I'm tempted to say this was our only zodiac outing today & the rest of the day we explored the ice pack & cruised in the ship. If I'm wrong I'll post the missing zodiac trip another day...

This is what people do when: (1) they are stuck on the ship all day and (2) the cold finally numbs all common sense!

This one is just for fun because I like the low cloud.

There is some color effect that happens at the poles sometimes after midnight, but I cannot remember the name for it....anybody?? The pic below was the only night (it's between 12:30-1am) we experienced it - and it slowly stretched over to the next glacier too.

It gets very cold and windy sometimes, but I love it up here!

Wild Kingdom....Arctic Style (day 5, 6/13/12)

Hey Everybody,

It's nearly 1am. We stopped watching for a polar bear to resurface at about 11:30pm. The ship monitors 24/7 and will wake us for a good viewing opportunity. After our two excursions today we head back into the ice to look for bears. We ended up finding three, but all were quite far away. I'm posting two pics anyway :-). The first is not cropped and the bear is "still hunting;" in the second (slightly cropped) the bear's head is raised. Just remember... Look for the stick of butter!

Some of you might remember a TV show called the Wild Kingdom - usually about lions hunting or something. Anyway, we got our own version of the show today - a two-part series! Part 1: Walruses, Part 2: Seabirds. I'm not a "birder," but as many as 200,000 birds were mating & nesting on sea cliffs... The birds were Guillemots and sounded like they are laughing. The real birders do NOT seem to find it funny, but many of us were laughing out loud.

I learned that the big pile of snow (bottom left) is often called a snow mushroom.

So, this morning our shore landing site was Torellneset, a polar desert, on Nordastlandet (the 2nd largest island in Svalbard & covered by two ice caps). It used to be an ocean floor. It also happens to be a popular hub for the walrus. So, we walked toward their spot and found a small group all huddled together. We could see and hear them, but still we were about 1,000ft away.

We left them to hike in the opposite direction a bit when we learned their was an animated group near the anchored zodiacs. Lucky for us a walrus is a very curious creature! They showed no fear and we had an amazingly close encounter with them! 20-30 people standing near the shoreline and the group head straight for the shore and the zodiacs to check us out. Gotta love that!

After that excitement I opted out of the short desert hike - I wanted to go, but I also wanted to take some ice photos. There wasn't time for both. One of the guides was kind enough to grab his rifle and walk with me a bit down the beach so I could take the photos. I would not have been permitted to go alone because a bear could swim to shore (or a walrus, at least today!). The guides are skilled, knowledgeable, funny....and deadly serious about safety. I watched a guide run to chase down a guy who just took off walking.

I also found the first seashells of this arctic trip & have the walruses to thank for that. At lunch, after our close encounter with the walruses, a guide told us that a walrus has the most powerful suction on the world...it can suck a brain right out of a seal's head! Nice mealtime conversation, huh?

Then we travelled to Alkefjellet Sea cliffs in Hinlopen Strait. As I mentioned the birds were hilarious. There were not quite 200,000 of them (best expert guess). The cooler sighting while we cruised up against the cliffs were the Arctic Foxes. We had 3-4 of those depending upon who is doing the counting. This one is carrying a meal (bird).

We then head into the ice pack to look for bears....this was the best view I've had so far....look closely! There are bear tracks and a bear :-) can you believe nobody else saw it?!

Polar Bear & 80* North (day 4, 6/12/12)

Hey Everybody!

Once again it is nearly midnight...impossible to get settled for the "night" any sooner out here. That was especially true today as we reached 80* North just after 9pm this evening. 80* is the point from which we could see walrus in the distance. Moffen Island is a walrus sanctuary. Therefore, we were not permitted closer than 300 meters. Hopefully, we'll have better viewing opportunities tomorrow during a shore landing. 80* was also the point of the ice pack - meaning the point where traveling further north is an unknown. We are the first ship this far north this season! 80* North is quite a feat - it is only 600 nautical miles from the north pole & very few people ever get here.

In fact our snowshoe prints today were (most likely) the first human prints of the season in Worsleyneset. It is named after Frank Worsley, a polar explorer. But they were not the first signs of life this season...we'll get to that. The other interesting note about the snow in today's spot is that it will probably be melted in two weeks time.

The first zodiac excursion today was a cruise, not a shore landing. We arrived at Monaco Glacier (named after Prince Albert 1 of Monaco who led expeditions mapping glaciers in 1906-7) and set out in search of polar bears and to view the three glaciers in this bay. We did find a polar bear that was "still hunting" on the ice through breathing holes & I'm posting a photo, but as you can tell we were not very close. The "stick of butter" is the bear! It was almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but the camera got a look. It's a start! We have 6 days left on the cruise, so we remain hopeful.

One of the guides for the trip is Ian Stirling - not only does he have a mountain named after him in Antarctica, but also he is the world's foremost polar bear expert. I asked him during a lunch conversation if he were hopeful regarding polar bears. He said he wanted to be with a look that revealed his doubt. There is very little ice for this time of year, so the truth is many of us were just relieved to see the bear had ice from which to hunt. The day before all the tracks we saw indicated that the bear had gone from mountain to mountain in search of a meal.

Speaking of tracks....here we are on the ship as it breaks into the ice at its edge. There are polar bear tracks in front of us. Next are mama bear & cub tracks as they cross the ice looking for food. Finding these tracks out on the ice highlights the vastness of the arctic region, the solitary life of polar bears, and makes real the possibility of the collapse of polar bears as we pass through ice-less places.

Our second zodiac excursion was for snowshoeing where there are animal bones and an old trapper's hut, but first a glimpse at the "mud room." The mud room is where we get ready - put on boots, parkas, and life jackets (legal term of course is: personal flotation device). Just outside on the deck we are required to rinse our shoes in a cleaning solution so that we do not contaminate the landing sites. We saw lots of tracks here....bear, reindeer, and arctic fox.

 

The photos I'm posting just cannot do justice to seeing and experiencing it for yourself, but I hope it conveys an idea of it. We continue to have some snow each day, but somehow our zodiac excursion weather always turn out nearly perfect.

It gets cold - colder than I want to admit at times. I have a constant wind burn on my face as a result of my denial! The snowshoeing was fun and easy. I did fall once because I tried to take a step back; you can't really do that! But... our guide fell before I did, so I don't feel too badly about it. Snow was soft :-) And at least I wasn't the poor guy who fell into a hole (crevasse in the ice) - he was fine - stuck, not hurt. Worse still, he had to wait for help out because people were photographing him. Not me...I was taking pictures of old animal tracks.

Guess I better stop for now. Thanks for stopping by! More soon....

Day Three (6-11-12)

Hey Everybody!

Much like yesterday we travelled through the night - since we are still in an area that the Gulf stream reaches, this is considered the "tropical" part of the arctic. After today's activities we will turn east and north toward 80* north (the high arctic). It is nearly midnight as I write. The sun is out, it's very cloudy but there is blue sky, and it has snowed on and off throughout the day but never for long.

Thus far the weather has been quite mild. Several times I've been able to stand on deck without a jacket. We are required to wear our parkas and loaner boots for excursions and I think that's been necessary for the most part.

There is almost no noise here. It's beautiful & peaceful but often seems so lifeless except for the birds, which provide just about the only noise we hear besides wind and water. Before breakfast this morning there was a young humpback whale. And occasionally we see seals (ringed, harbor, bearded). But one of today's zodiac excursions convinced us that there is a lot of activity way up north. I'll get to that in a minute.

This is a picture of the beach just after we got off the zodiacs...the orange tower is a lookout post the guides use. They were constantly checking for signs of bears and they always carry rifles.

The first zodiac trip today was to "Blubber Town" - officially known as Smeerenburg. The Dutch established the first whaling station here in the 1700s. There used to be a huge whale population here, but the whalers wiped it out after about 40yrs of hunting. And there are very few whales here to this day. There are still areas where you can see the blubber cookeries. We also found some old bones and a very old mast.


An old blubber cookery:

Smeerenburg is also the sight of the 1896/1897 attempts to launch hydrogen-filled balloons to the North Pole.

As soon as we exited the boats (yep, another wet landing) there was a polar bear buzz in the air. The guides had found some tracks. Of course they didn't know how new or old they might be and they saw no bear. There was a young (maybe 3 mo) ringed seal dangerously close to shore - perfect polar bear snack! So, it did restrict our activities a bit in terms of distance covered. But we never saw a bear & I never saw the tracks.

A lot of trash washes ashore here due to the currents. The arctic, which is without trees, has a large number of trees on shore. The trees come fom Russia/Siberia! One of the tasks polar cruise operators have adopted during their season is to collect trash and bring it back to Longyearbyen for examination and cataloging. We picked up lots of plastic and I took on the challenge of getting the net. Luckily, a nice man helped me carry it.

This was the first chance for snowshoeing, but I opted out to take pictures. I will probably do it tomorrow. Here's a pic of the group that did snap them on.

After Smeerenburg we returned to the ship for a couple hours or so, then ventured back out for a zodiac cruise in search of polar bears in the Holmiabukta area (Butka means bay). While we did not see any...we had fun searching. Here are some of the interesting signs of life:

Polar bear tracks

A polar bear sliding down a mountain to conserve energy.

Reindeer tracks

The glaciers continue to pop up before us regularly.

This hut is pretty cool....used to be for trappers, but is now presrved/cared for by the Svalbard government. They send 1-2 people out for two month stretches to monitor things. How cool would that be?! Of course they must be careful of bears.

That's all for now....more soon!

Day Two (6-10-12)

Hello again,

So, we travelled through the night, waking to find ourselves surrounded by mountains. You are looking at the ships and our zodiacs in action on our first outing.

The mountains remind me a lot of Alaska except that they are smaller. As we cruise through fjords, I never stop being amazed by the number of glaciers. Every couple of mountains or so lie valleys & most of the time these valleys have glaciers. Some of the glaciers seem to be receding, but much of the time they are good size - not huge, not always spectacular. But for me each glacier renews my sense of awe. The largest glacier today was the result of two glaciers merging. It was the first time I've seen that.

Ny-Alesund is an old mining camp that has been turned into an international scientific research and environmental monitoring station. At 79* north it is the world's northernmost permanent settlement. The population varies between 30-150 depending on the season (summer is busiest). I guess this means it's summertime.....

This site is important for another reason too. Amundsen (a polar explorer) and crew are credited with opening polar flight. They were the first to fly over the North Pole in 1926. This is the mast that was used to moor the airship.

This train was brought to Ny-Alesund in 1917 to transport the coal.

The North Pole Hotel :-)

The northernmost post office where I had my passport stamped (poorly, unfortunately)....but I know I was there!

About the land. At first glance the Arctic looks so barren - with no animals or plants. But it not true. As we walked over rocks, snow and mud we found tiny flowers like this:

After Ny-Alesund we returned to the ship for lunch and cruised a bit further for our second zodiac trip of the day. We first stayed in the zodiacs to cruise near the cliffs where birds nest.

Then we went to shore again....this was a wet landing (we found out that this AM was our only dry landing), which just means that to exit and board the boats we have to get in the water - below the knees. And our loaner boots are excellent...feet don't get wet at all! At least not yet.... I have touched the water and would guess it's in the 32* range. Anyway, we walked over the beach toward this glacier.

PS here's a live reindeer for Captain Heidi! I think we'll see more in a couple days. It's unusual for them to be in this area because there's nothing to eat in the snow. No sign of Santa yet, but locals tells me he summers on warm beaches.