Hornsund, Spitzbergen
It’s morning and it hasn’t been dark all night! The sun hasn’t even gone down….at all! It’s just beautiful all day and all night and the sun just gets a bit higher and a bit lower as it circles around and around and around without ever setting. And the weather…just plain clear and gorgeous beyond belief. Welcome to our trip to Svalbard, the archipelago that contains the island of Spitzbergen where we find ourselves on this amazing Thursday.
We began with a morning landing near an old trapper’s cabin at the base of one of the most incredible cliff faces imaginable. Over our heads the cliff was alive with thousands of nesting kittiwake gulls along with puffins and murres. We walked on the remaining snow near the shoreline so that we might not harm the lush new moss growth emerging into the warmth of the summer sun. Alive! Some of us hiked up the steep slope toward the precipitous cliff face to have a view of the fjord, the sea, and the knife-edged ranges of mountains surrounding us that were truly staggering. All of us had the chance to take a peek inside the trapper’s cabin, that once housed two men over many winters. It was build in the early 20th century. It has one tiny window about 200 square feet of living space and 6 foot ceilings. Rough duty indeed!
The Endeavour moved a bit further into the fjord during lunch and we had the afternoon for Zodiac cruises and kayaking. The sun shone strongly, the sky was deep, deep blue, the shore fast ice was expansive and the seas were glassy calm. Black guillemots, glaucous gulls, kittiwakes, and thick-billed murres all joined us gliding along the sea surface. The ragged mountain reflections mirrored on the sea so accurately that it seemed our boats and kayaks would run right into them. We thought we had seen it all when over the radio came the call that a walrus had been sighted among the scattered sea ice. For the next few hours we all had the chance to hop into a Zodiac and get an incredibly close look at this huge, tusked, unlikely monster of an animal floating about on her ice floe, reflected in the mirror of the water along with the spectacular mountains behind. Meeting this immense creature on this glorious day formed a memory that will remain alive in our hearts and minds for a very, very long time.
It’s morning and it hasn’t been dark all night! The sun hasn’t even gone down….at all! It’s just beautiful all day and all night and the sun just gets a bit higher and a bit lower as it circles around and around and around without ever setting. And the weather…just plain clear and gorgeous beyond belief. Welcome to our trip to Svalbard, the archipelago that contains the island of Spitzbergen where we find ourselves on this amazing Thursday.
We began with a morning landing near an old trapper’s cabin at the base of one of the most incredible cliff faces imaginable. Over our heads the cliff was alive with thousands of nesting kittiwake gulls along with puffins and murres. We walked on the remaining snow near the shoreline so that we might not harm the lush new moss growth emerging into the warmth of the summer sun. Alive! Some of us hiked up the steep slope toward the precipitous cliff face to have a view of the fjord, the sea, and the knife-edged ranges of mountains surrounding us that were truly staggering. All of us had the chance to take a peek inside the trapper’s cabin, that once housed two men over many winters. It was build in the early 20th century. It has one tiny window about 200 square feet of living space and 6 foot ceilings. Rough duty indeed!
The Endeavour moved a bit further into the fjord during lunch and we had the afternoon for Zodiac cruises and kayaking. The sun shone strongly, the sky was deep, deep blue, the shore fast ice was expansive and the seas were glassy calm. Black guillemots, glaucous gulls, kittiwakes, and thick-billed murres all joined us gliding along the sea surface. The ragged mountain reflections mirrored on the sea so accurately that it seemed our boats and kayaks would run right into them. We thought we had seen it all when over the radio came the call that a walrus had been sighted among the scattered sea ice. For the next few hours we all had the chance to hop into a Zodiac and get an incredibly close look at this huge, tusked, unlikely monster of an animal floating about on her ice floe, reflected in the mirror of the water along with the spectacular mountains behind. Meeting this immense creature on this glorious day formed a memory that will remain alive in our hearts and minds for a very, very long time.
