Liefdefjorden: Party Crasher

Friday, 8 July (Part V)

Bundled up in our layers, we accepted Robin’s invitation to attend the impromptu al fresco cocktail party laid out on Deck 6 aft. Even though the sun was playing an aggressive game of hide and seek, it was nice to be outside to enjoy the Arctic scenery as Silver Explorer made its way back through the patches of ice covering the water between Liefdefjorden and Woodfjorden.

Can you guess the uniform of the day?

My perch on Deck 7 provides a bird’s eye view of the scenery and the goings on below me.

I was wandering around with my camera, taking photographs, when I saw Akademik Sergey Vavilov, an expedition ship operated by Quark, nosed into the ice. On the bow were yellow-jacketed passengers looking out into the distance. Hmmm — a sure sign of a sighting, but what?

So what’s captured the attention of the other ship?

No sooner did I signal Mui to get his camera and follow me to the bow that Robin came on the P/A system to announce that there were three or four bears on the ice. They were off in the distance, however, so it didn’t look like we were going to stop. Good thing we didn’t. There was something better just ahead. Not far off the edge of the ice was another bear waiting for us. What a great sighting — the one that I had been waiting for — the one of the great isbjørn (ice bear) surveying his domain from the sea ice.

The ship slowed down considerably as passengers rushed to rim the starboard railings like a long, red banner. With shallow water on one side, and ice on the other, the Captain had no choice but to stay on course, taking us right by the polar bear. The bear didn’t seem bothered by the proximity of the ship and stayed put to give us an excellent sighting. Then, bored with us, he sat up, sniffed around, got on his feet, and waddled away, giving us a perfect “the end” shot! (And yes, though the reflections weren’t perfect, I did get to double my pleasure.)

With the bear moving in one direction, and the ship in another direction, it wasn’t long before the bear was a small, creamy-white dot on the horizon. On that note, the bow area emptied just as quickly as it had filled up. Mui and I stayed put until the ship picked up speed. With that speed came a wind-chill that was more than we could bear — that’s what I call a pun :-))).

Ice-free water is just ahead.

Glaucous gulls mirrored on still waters.

A great cocktail party was followed by a great dinner, during which a good deal of the conversation centered around the party crasher. We shared our table with Drs. Christina and Bob, and a couple hailing from Aberdeen, Scotland. An excellent French onion soup, followed by penne with pesto and grilled red snapper, served me quite well. The more adventurous Mui started off with fried frog legs, and continued with a small green salad and chateaubriand cooked to perfection. We’re still debating whose dessert was better: my multi-berry sorbet or his chocolate marquise. I think we’d better call it a tie or neither of us is going to get any sleep.

Since we did not have a recap and briefing, we’re not sure what’s planned for tomorrow. Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.

P.S. Tonight we REACHED 80°03’53” NORTH, putting us within 10 degrees of the North Pole. At least that’s the latitude I noted on the navigation channel when we returned to the cabin. There were no announcements to mark the occasion. Seeing as how we now seem to be headed south into a straight that separates Spitsbergen from Nordaustlandet, the second largest island in the Svalbard archipelago, that may well end up being our furthest north for this voyage.

Liefdefjorden: Monacobreen

Friday, 8 July (Part IV)

Having cruised through the ice to reposition from Woodfjorden (post here), Silver Explorer continued deep into Liefdefjorden.  When I Googled the name of the fjord for a translation, it came back as a Dutch word that means “Love Fjords.”  How appropriate for a place that we loved exploring.  Not only was there a big glacier and lots of icebergs here, there were minke whales and bearded seals popping up all over the place.

Our afternoon activity was a zodiac cruise to Monacobreen (Monaco Glacier), at the head of the fjord.  This giant river of ice, 3 miles (5 km) wide at its terminus, was named in recognition of the support Prince Albert II of Monaco has given to research projects in Spitsbergen.  You go Prince!  (Until earlier this year, our ship was named Prince Albert II; now it’s been renamed to better brand it as a Silversea ship.)

Before I share images from our mini-cruise, I’ll digress into a mini-rant.  Admittedly, I know nothing of depth charts and such, so maybe there was a reason why the ship anchored 9 miles (14 km) from the glacier front.  To our lay eyes, there seemed to be plenty of deep, open water before we got into the area littered with good sized bergs and bergy bits.  Whatever the reason, we were given no explanation.  When we asked about the long distance we had to traverse to get to the glacier, the expedition members hemmed and hawed, but didn’t give a direct answer.  Our sense was that they didn’t necessarily understand why themselves and were reluctant to discuss it with the passengers.

Despite my rant, and how downright cold we were when the zodiac was zipping along at full throttle to get us to our destination, we enjoyed the zodiac cruise.  The scenery was awe inspiringly spectacular, and there was plenty of ice to keep me happy.  The one disappointment was that we didn’t get anywhere near what I would consider “close” (meaning a mile or so) to the glacier’s terminus.  We simply ran out of time!

The light conditions shooting towards the glacier made the colors dull, so I focused my attention on all of the other ice that was glistening under the sun, their blues and aquas brilliantly displayed.

By the time we returned to the ship, we were chilled considerably — more so than at any other time during the past days.  But we weren’t willing to give up our outdoor experience immediately.  Finishing the hot chocolate with which we were greeted at the top of the gangway, we made our way to Deck 6 aft where we sipped more of the same from the comfort of a couple of chaise lounges.  Hmmm, hmmm, good!

Eventually, we folded up the wool blankets we’d snuggled ourselves into and returned to the cabin.  Meeting us at the door, Joel was anxious to do something — anything — for us.  So, we asked him to bring us some tapas for in-suite consumption.  We’d barely sat down to enjoy the delectable appetizers with our beverages of choice when the PA system came alive.  No, it wasn’t a wildlife sighting this time.  Instead, it was to tell us that the scheduled recap and briefing was cancelled in lieu of cocktails on Deck 6 aft.

We finished our tapas before leaving the cabin, taking our drinks with us when we went to join the rest of the passengers for a lovely al fresco cocktail party …

Woodfjorden: Thuds, Bangs, and Clangs

Friday, 8 July (Part III)

What a morning we had in Woodfjorden.  First a Blue Whale sighting (post here).  Then bears on the ice, which we got to watch from a zodiac, our mobile sightseeing platform (post here).  And all of this in a breathtakingly beautiful setting of ice and water rimmed with jagged mountains still wearing a light mantle of snow and ice.  That we had spectacular weather didn’t hurt either — blue skies, sunshine, and temps rising to 45.3F (7.4C).

What more could we ask for?  How about a minke whale surfacing right outside the window of our suite when we returned to the cabin to drop off our zodiac life vests.  Even though my camera was not handy to document this close encounter, the image of the whale coming to the surface and slowly diving back into the water is forever ingrained in the gray matter that is my brain.

You want more ways to improve our morning?  How about a cruise through the ice as Silver Explorer repositioned into Liefdefjorden, which branches off from Woodfjorden.  And to make that experience even better — how about watching Silver Explorer’s progress from the bow of the ship.  Not from Deck 6, but from a lower vantage point that had been off limits to passengers.

On our Antarctic voyage, the bow had been accessible at all times — except when Professor Molchanov was dropping anchor or otherwise preparing for zodiac operations.  I’d missed having that access on Silver Explorer until this point in our voyage.

Looking down from Deck 6 to deck 4.

Looking up from Deck 4 to Decks 5 and 6.

What a great experience the ice cruise was.  Being on a lower deck allowed us to see the ice cracking as the ship slowly and ever-carefully pushed it’s way through.  As well, we could clearly hear the distinct thuds, and bangs, and clangs as the ice met the hull before parting to allow us passage.  Oh the joys of having a 1A ice rating!

I’ll share some photos, but first a short clip of our cruise through the white stuff.  I took the footage with the video feature of my Canon G-12; not bad, if I do say so myself.  (Thanks go to Mui for putting it all together for me.)

[click the arrow to start the video clip]

And now for the still images … I have to tell you, it was hard to pare down to a reasonable number to put on the blog.

Glaucous Gulls

If you’ve been reading along for a while, you know I love photographing reflections.  Well, during this ice cruise I had a lot of opportunities to double my viewing pleasure.

Hint of a reflection.

Glaucous Gull

It's not always water that mirrors back an image.  yes, that’s me with the camera!

And when reflections and bergy bits come together ... well, I'm in ice heaven!

Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day,
I’ve got a wonderful feeling,
Everything’s going my way!

Oh, yeah!  I felt like breaking out in that Rodgers and Hammerstein song.  But in consideration of my fellow passengers’ auditory senses, I restrained myself and just hummed the music to myself instead.