Sailing North Into The Ice

Sailing north to more Ice. 

The plan, such as it is, for today, is to sail North looking for ice and Ice Bear. 

I was awake to bright sunny skies at 0330. I gathered my kit and made my way to the Chartroom. Here I am catching up on the Blog, sorting pictures and enjoying the morning quiet and coffee. 

I was greeted by the Midnight sun as we were sailing 

through the Hiniopen Strait to a point of land known as Kapp Fanshawe. The location is known for it shear cliffs where many many many Guillemots were nesting, along with Kittiwakes, Arctic Gulls and a couple Barnacle Geese.  

The Arctic Gulls prey upon the Guillemot young and eggs. It was nesting season and the Guillemots were standing watch over their eggs as the Arctic Gulls cruised by looking for an opportunity to find an unguarded egg. 

As we were finishing up breakfast, the call came out there were Norwalls off the bow. One must be ready to get out at a moments notice to see what has been spotted. So it is binoculars always around the neck, camera at the ready, and proper outdoor gear always accessible.  They were a good bit off and all that was visible was their heads as they surfaced. Stephanie Martin our expedition leader is very well studied in the whales of the world and was super excited about this sighting. It was estimated there were 30 in the pod. 

Next we headed to the Wallenberg Fjord ICE and were lucky enough to see three Ice Bears. Two approached the ship and seemed rather curious. Simply amazing, beyond words.  These were quality Ice Bear experiences. 

Our Captain is Lief Skog, a Captain with many many years of Ice experience and one of the most knowledge Ice Captains in the world. His experience in polar waters runs deep, navigating vessels in Antarctica nearly every season since 1979 on more than 100 Antarctic voyages. He is also Chairman of the IAATO Marine Committee (International Assn. of Antarctic Tour Operators), he was a primary architect of the IAATO Emergency Contingency Plan for all vessels operating in Antarctica. We could not be in better hands. 

After lunch there were hiking options as we landed at Sorgfjord. Again we opted for the photo hike. Received good information reference exposure compensation and histogram.

Back to the ship to clean up and laundry. Tonight is the Captains reception and dinner. 

The Duck was great!!!! Yep the food is amazing, don’t want you to think we were roughing it too much.  

At about 2209 hours  it was announced we had reached our farthest north point. 80. 44. 378 North, 015 54.8 East. Also there were Bearded Seals spotted, so up and out we went. I did take a GPS reading and got us at 80.45 North.