Exploring the Ice of Eastern Svalbard
As the wake-up call sounded, we found ourselves to the east end of Freemansundet (the ‘Freeman Sound’) which separates Edgeøya from Barentsøya. During the night National Geographic Explorer had been sailing northwards along the east side of Edgeøya. Our goal was to reach to the southwestern corner of Nordaust-landet (the ‘North East Land’) by the evening. Nordaustlandet is the second largest island in Svalbard. It is located in the coldest corner of the archipelago: more than eighty percent of Nordaustlandet is covered by glacier. During the summer the amount of drift ice is higher here than you will normally find in waters further to the west and south. If you want to sea polar bears, you need to find ice. Both the bears and their main dish – seals – depend on ice for a number of purposes. The polar bear is a marine mammal, and if it wasn’t for the need of a snow den during birth and the first months to follow, polar bears could do perfectly well on sea ice all year round.
Recent ice charts had shown promising concentrations of drift ice from Barentsøya northwards to Nordaustlandet. Hence, we were moving in that direction. We nosed into low density drift ice at breakfast time. Gradually we encountered drift ice of increasing density. Our Captain and crew gently zig-zagged our first rate ice vessel through a seemingly endless surface of drifting sea ice. Just about an hour after breakfast Expedition Leader Larry Prussin announced that our second polar bear had been spotted: a large male bear lying on a large sheet of ice a good two miles ahead of the ship. Binoculars, cameras and an arsenal of long lenses rapidly found their way to the front deck. Faces of great expectations could be observed as the ship slowly moved on with an absolute minimum of noise. It is a key issue not to disturb the wildlife we are viewing. So, it was nice to notice that our presence seemingly had no negative impact on the bear’s behavior.
During the morning two more bears – a female with a year-old cub (see main picture) - were spotted. There were also quite a few seals to be seen, in the water and resting on ice. The birders on board enjoyed the sight of a few Ivory Gulls and Pomarine Skuas. During the morning one of our Photo Specialists, Bob Smith, presented “An Introduction to Photography, for Beginners to Experts”.
In the afternoon, Tom Smith talked about his research on Arctic mammals, including wildlife surveys of seals by using specially trained detection dogs. Just before dinner the fourth bear of the day was spotted. In order to stick to the scheduled dinner time, the ship kept waiting and we all got the opportunity to see the bear in the middle of a huge sheet of sea ice.
A recap before dinner touched on a number of subjects. Dennis Cornejo, our Underwater Specialist, obviously drew special attention with his humorous way of explaining small and big dramas taking place down deep. His presentation showed underwater videography from Hornsund, recorded with a ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle). The vivid summing of voices and laughter before recap gave proof of quite some day to remember.
