Thursday, July 2, 2015
On the map this morning there is a sleeping polar bear
marked and the one Clay didn’t see marked. They were both on Smeerenburgfjord
that we sailed back south through overnight. Apparently, we did sail into and
out of Magdalenafjord at 2am. We slept right through. Evidently we stopped
there to pick up four cross-country skiers and their 2 dogs. It was really
rough again about 4 to 6am. Looking at the map, it must have been as we entered
Kongsfjord to enter Krossfjorden and now we are in front of Lilliehookbreen, a
large glacier. Evidently, they plan to give us zodiac trips to the glacier face
and back at 9:30am. I got to breakfast and ate, but still feel shaky. It is
raining outside and I haven’t decided if this is something I want to do or not.
There was an obligatory information meeting at 9am. There
was some confusion because the speakers throughout the ship don’t all work or
work well. It was lightly attended. We learned that the Lillihook glacier
cruising this morning is to be in 30 minute zodiac rides per group. I can see
it from here so will not aggravate my constitution by going. If I had never
taken a zodiac ride before a big tidewater glacier face before I might go. But,
I have, I don’t feel well and it is raining and I can see it perfectly well
from here. Clay has gone. The other thing we learned in the meeting is that
evidently everyone on the ship except us is claiming to have seen 2 polar bears
last night. I know why I didn’t but I don’t know how Clay didn’t if he was
there with them Oh, well. We had both seen polar bears before too. So, I guess
in the end we didn’t really have a lot riding on this trip and therefore can’t
be too disappointed.
I stayed onboard and skipped the morning glacier cruise in
Polarcirkels. I saw it calve 3 times. I could hear it too. Clay said I didn’t
miss anything. It was a huge expanse of beautiful blue ice! As I sat there, 3
women from I think 3 other countries sat in a seating cluster in the center of
the room and discussed their “polar bear” sighting last night. It went
something like this. Yes, I saw it. I did too. At first, I thought is it a bit
of snow, is it a rock. No it is a polar bear. Well so for the 2nd
one I knew what to look for. Yes it is a polar bear. I don’t feel too bad now.
In Churchill, we didn’t even count a sleeping bear a half mile off as a
sighting!
Lunch was at 12:30. About the time we arrived at a bird
cliff full of nesting kittiwakes and Brunnich's guillemots. I stayed inside while Clay went out front on
the foredeck and jostled for a space. When he came back, he used the binoculars
and looked out the nearly empty front lounge windows with me and said again,
you didn’t miss anything.
We are back out to the mouth of the Kongsford where we had
rough sailing early this morning. Guess what, we hit those big swells again as
lunch was ending. I am about to get back in bed. I feel bad that we’ve come all
this way for a special place like Svalbard and now I am hitting an endurance and
functioning wall but I’ve had a good long run for the past 58 days! I think we
must be the only people I know who’ve been to Svalbard and not seen a polar
bear!
We will have another landing this afternoon near a bird
cliff. A final stop around 8 to 10pm where we will dock at Ny-Alesund.
The landing was not exactly as advertised, again! In
Barentsburg, no one announced at the mandatory information meeting that there
were 270 stairs to go up to get to join the guided tour. Today, no one said if
you come ashore you have to hike straight up to the top of the bird cliff to
look down. I really didn’t care about seeing kittiwakes nesting from above! The
good news is that on the more or less vertical hike we saw 4 reindeer, a rock
ptarmigan and 2 arctic foxes. We also saw 2 glaciers and across the fjord, the
village we’ll visit tonight, Ny-Alesund.
Dinner tonight is duck. So whether I am up and around then
or not, I guess I’ll miss dinner again tonight. More good news. I had an
excellent appetizer in lieu of scallops so I was fed already. It was fried brie
with raspberry sauce and iceberg lettuce with enormous toasted pine nuts, some
alfalfa sprouts and dried capers with a strawberry. Clay had a few tastes of
things on the plate, but I ate most of it and I never finish anything! Dinner
was duck, but it was a piece of roasted duck breast, a thin slice of chicken
breast wrapped in prosciutto and a half a potato with some veggies in a brown
gravy. I ate the chicken and Clay ate my duck. For dessert, we had strawberries
in chocolate sauce with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I felt very well fed.
By the time dinner was over, it was time for the mandatory
meeting on going ashore at Ny-Alesund. Ny-Alesund is a former mining company
town. I guess it is still owned by the mining company, but now it is a center
for international research stations. There are maybe a dozen different
countries with researchers there. There is a well-researched colony of barnacle
geese. They had a lot of fuzzy little chicks. It is also a Roald Amundson hot
spot as this is the launch site of aerial exploration of the North Pole. It was
a nice final visiting spot. We had a guided tour with Yann our normal onboard
English language group guide. He has been very informative and helpful. His
particular area of expertise seems to be in poop. We have examined a lot of
poop! We had about an hour of free time in Ny-Alesund. We read a few of the
historical marker signs and walked to a polar bear warning sign. Evidently they
have more of a polar bear problem here than in Longyearbyen. We had time to
shop and to see the northernmost post office as well as the northernmost pub.
Ny-Alesund is at just under 79 degrees North.
