Wednesday, July 1, 2015
We slept well last night, all things considered. I have
about 18 to 24 inches of headroom up on the top bunk and there is not much of a
rail to keep one in bed. In addition, we have found it too hot in the cabin and
it was even hotter up there near the ceiling.
A few comments about this cruise vs. the Hurtigruten coastal
cruise. Hurtigruten has as their bread and butter that coastal express cruise
north and south bound along the Norwegian coast. It was an unpleasant experience. Even though this ship
is older and smaller, the spaces are better designed and thus more functional.
Internet access was better on Nordkapp and seems to not exist on here. Also
there is the fact that this is not a Hurtigruten cruise. In fact, Hurtigruten
sold Nordstjernen a few years ago. It seems it is owned by Vestland Marine now.
Spitsbergen Travel is the company putting on this cruise. They are either a
partner or at least partly owned by Hurtigruten. Spitsbergen Travel owns the
Spitsbergen Hotel where we began and will end. According to their uniforms, all
the guides onboard are employed by Spitsbergen Travel. The complimentary
insulated mugs they gifted us are logoed with Spitsbergen Travel. So, it seems
Hurtigruten has very little to do with it other than advertising and booking
it. That would probably explain the ever-refilled pitchers of complimentary ice
water available onboard!
This ship is so old that I can’t imagine that it meets SOLAS
standards today. I could only find one metal/magnetic surface in our cabin and
it was the bathroom door. The outer door is solid wood. There is a lot of wood
exposed and I have to assume a lot unexposed. I have never sailed on a ship
without metal cabins walls!
The seas are rougher today and it feels colder. There is
more snow on the mountains. Clay took a shower last night when the seas were
calm as we were still in a fjord. I took mine this morning in open seas. It was
a different experience. There is a shower curtain that curves across a portion
of the bathroom floor with a drain in the corner of the floor. Clay had put a
hand towel down in front of the sink to keep part of the floor dry. That towel
spent the night on the floor in the corner by the drain so it was still mostly
damp this morning. By his example, I re-spread it outside the curtain in front
of the sink again. Problem! The floor stayed level when he showered. I got in
and turned on the water. The water was pooling in the corner by the drain, then
the ship listed hard to port and a wave of water rolled over the tops of my
feet and under the shower curtain and across the floor. Forget the towel
absorbing splatter! Clay had told me that he dropped a baby aspirin in the
bathroom and didn’t find it. He assumed it had gone down the sink. Wrong! I
don’t know where it was but it came back under my feet in one of the many waves
of shower water I experienced this morning. Needless to say, I had a bigger
post-shower cleanup problem than Clay did. He asked how it was. He had stayed
in the cabin he said to hear me fall if I toppled over in there so he could help
me. It really was that rough that it was hard to stay upright. He said, well I
didn’t hear you fall. I told him about the waves of water across the bathroom
floor and his aspirin being washed out from somewhere. He thought about it and
then laughed and said that yeah he could see how that would work and he didn’t
have that problem.
We had breakfast at 7:30am. Clay went with me to hunt for
Internet and we’ve decided there just isn’t any even though there is a wi-fi
network we can log on to. Breakfast was a buffet. We have our first zodiac
excursions this morning. We have arrived into the fjord yet. Our destination to
go ashore is Mushamna. I have no idea what we are looking to see there. We have
an information meeting about it at 9am. 9:30am we are supposed to start going
ashore. We have been divided into 6 groups, mostly by language. There are 15 in
the English boat. There are 2 Norwegian boats. A Finnish boat and a German
boat. There is also a boat with people who opted to join Alonzo, the professional
wildlife photographer who is onboard. I think I need to wear long underwear and
waterproof pants ashore as it is so cold and windy but I have been in the
lounge where they hold the meetings and it is too hot to go dressed like that.
I hope we have time to change clothes between the 9am meeting and the 9:30am
departure! If not, I’ll either be very cold or else late!
So, at the obligatory meeting we learned what we already
suspected. The wind was blowing too hard and in the wrong direction to allow
our landings. So we are leaving Mushamna and sailing an hour further into and
across the Woodfjord to Texas Bar. They originally picked some other place but
then the wind changed direction! So here it is shortly after 10am and I have
not heard them call the Germans yet. We are in group 3. So it will be a while
yet. They have 6 zodiacs or polarcirckel boats. They say they will put 7 people
in each boat plus a guide in each, or in every other one. We are to stick to
each other in our groups ashore in case of polar bears. They will be scanning
ashore from the bridge and if any polar bears are spotted we won’t make land.
If they miss the bears and they see us we are to remain calm and quiet as move
as a group back to the zodiac and follow instructions as each guide will have a
flare gun to frighten a polar bear and a rifle if needed. I’d still really like
to see a polar bear here! We have another landing further in this fjord at 4pm.
I don’t remember the name of the place, but I’ll get it later. We have Moffen
Island and the 80th parallel to look forward at 10pm before we head
back south to Longyearbyen. We are scheduled to sail into Magdalenafjord at 3am
but without a landing. I don’t know why. Is it just for timing things or is
there actually something to see in there. Should we get up for it? I’ll let you
know.
We got ashore and I can tell you that it may have been
wind-chill but it felt much colder than the 5C that the lead guide told us to
expect. I was OK. I wore a lightweight pair of long underwear, fleece pants and
waterproof pants, 1 pair of medium weight socks and the Trondheim 199NOK boots.
On top I had the long underwear top, a French terry top, a hoodie and a rain
jacket. I had on a single lightweight pair of gloves and a headband and both
jacket hoods. Only my face ever felt cold and I did have on a scarf that I
could have arranged to pull up to my nose if I’d thought of it. So Texas Bar is
the name of a trapper’s hut that was built in the early 1900’s by a well-known
trapper who overwintered more than anyone else. I think our guide said
something over 40 winters over the guy’s lifetime. He evidently built dozens of
these cabins over that time so he could travel around to where the animals
might be. That and a hilltop rock cairn and some pretty big tidewater glaciers
were all there were to be seen. According to the computerized map they display
in the lounge there was a polar bear sighted in the area on June 28, 2015. We
found signs that ducks or geese had been feeding there recently. We found
reindeer hoof prints and poop. But the only animals we saw well were birds.
Once as we were on a hilltop ashore talking about errant boulders, I watched a
single seal swimming along up and down in front of a glacier, but it was very
far away and I soon lost him as someone stepped in front of me. We were ashore
about 2 hours. Lunch was moved back to 1pm since our shore time was moved back.
We sailed in gentle circles in front of the glaciers for an hour or more during
lunch. I think our guide said the main glacier was Monacobreen.
We sailed on down Woodfjord to a side arm fjord, Bjornfjord
where we were dressed and ready for our 4pm zodiac landing or scenic sail. We
weren’t clear which. The good news was that we were out on the back deck early
and the wildlife photographer onboard spotted reindeer ashore and we got to see
them. After we got the news that they had decided it was too windy to put the
zodiacs in the water again and we turned around and started to sail out, I was
looking for the reindeer again. I was scanning with the binoculars and came on
a big cloud of swarming birds over the water so I stopped. I saw a big black
shape with a small black pointy fin surface and go back down. I yelled whale to
Clay and he looked in time to see it happen again and he yelled humpback. We
both thought it looked like a humpback. Soon others joined us and quite a few
people could see the cluster of birds and so saw the final blow and black hump
surface. The guides and the wildlife photographer showed up several minutes
later but the whales had vanished along with the birds. I don’t know how they
got out of that dead end without us seeing them go, or stay! The guide and
photographer assured us what we had seen had to be a minke whale because they
are known in the area and a humpback sighting would be too rare. We don’t know
because we didn’t get any photos and we don’t have Internet so it isn’t like we
can look up minke vs humpbacks and tell. Anyway, we missed our second outing
but got reindeer and whales. So now we are sailing for Moffen Island.
Originally we had been scheduled to arrive at 10pm. Now we should be earlier.
We went to one of the guide’s informal lounge talks about polar bears at 5pm.
There was another guide to speak at 6pm but the first 40 minute talk was too
painful for me to take a chance sitting through another. I have no idea who the
next guide was or what the topic was. (Oh, we’ve just missed another
announcement so I went up and asked and it was for the next lecture on
Svalbard’s Weather Wars. The Nazis as well as the Allies wanted control of
Svalbard and Northern Norway for weather stations because being able to predict
the weather coming from the North was critical to winning WWII. We did already
know that, so we’re still skipping it.
Dinner is at 7pm. Moffen Island is a protected sanctuary for
walrus breeding colonies. There should be a good chance of seeing walruses at a
distance. We are only allowed so close for so long due to the protected status.
Also this is our chance to sail north of 80 degrees. Then we turn around and
start sailing back down to Longyearbyen. Originally, we were scheduled to sail
into Magdalenafjord at 3am. Now we should be there earlier. It is supposed to
be a scenic beauty and historically significant as a center for whale
processing. I don’t know what to expect to see.
Scenic beauty is on overload here. If you love fjords, come
to Norway. North America has them, South America has them, but Norway wins
hands down at fjords!
We crossed the 80N parallel just before 7pm. They served
champagne on the back deck outside and the captain blew the horn when we
crossed. In minutes, they announced that Moffen Island was dead ahead and there
were walruses. Everyone went forward. They let us out on the skip deck where
they keep the polarcirkel boats. Moffen is just a small flat sandy spit of
land. It was covered with driftwood and some darker logs that were sleeping
walruses. As close as we were and even with binoculars, I could not identify
them as walrus. I did see one scratch with a flipper, but none lifted their
heads so I could see their faces. I believe they said mating season was around
May. I assume these were all gestating females.
The bad news is that we had to cross some really rough open
ocean to get there. I had been upstairs earlier to find out what the
announcements were that we cannot hear in our cabin. It was nothing important
and I cannot even remember now what it was. But, I got washing machined around
the stairwell and got sea sick. I made it up back and outside for the crossing
ceremony. I made it up front to see the walrus logs. We sat there and rocked
and rolled and I got sicker. I didn’t know how long we’d be there but dinner
was being served at 7pm and I knew we had to sail back across. I went to bed
with a sick sack and took some drugs to knock myself out. Clay went to dinner
alone. He went to the 9pm photography talk. He came back and showered for bed
when he could hear another announcement outside. He dressed and walked up
upside and they were saying there was a polar bear. The professional
photographer showed Clay his photo and where to look on land. Clay confessed
that he didn’t see a polar bear in the photo or on land but photographed the
spot where he was told the bear was. Still didn’t see it. Evidently it was a very shy ice bear. They said maybe 10 minutes later that a big male walked around in great view but I guess a lot of people like Clay had already left by then. It is too bad they don't have a better or fully functional public address system. I mean this is what we all came for and it was the name of the cruise and when polar bears were found, we were not all notified.
