St. Jonsfjorden, Spitsbergen, 5/17/2018, National Geographic Explorer
Aboard the
National Geographic Explorer
Arctic
After watching three bears yesterday in Wahlbergfjorden, we have to travel quite a long way today—the final day of our voyage—to reach our next destination, closer and closer to Longyearbyen.
At age 24 Jonathan had his first experience in Antarctica as a scientist at the coastal French Dumont d'Urville Station. Located on the windiest place on Earth (regularly around 200km/h, maximum up to 320 km/h), and bounded by sea ice eight months a ...
Bear Island is the southernmost island in the Norwegian Svalbard Archipelago and today we had the incredible, rare treat of visiting the island’s meteorological station, Herwighamna. It has been 18 years since our last visit! In the morning, station staff members came to our ship to give us a brief presentation, and after this we headed out via Zodiac to the island where we split into smaller groups and enjoyed a lovely hike. The station has two dogs, Yeti and Nuka, that keep the station safe from the rare polar bear. Our afternoon held presentations from Historian Ezra and National Geographic Photographer Nick Cobbing. Today we will conclude our Svalbard chapter of this journey. Tomorrow we will continue south to make our way to Tromso to begin the second chapter of our expedition, exploring the breathtaking fjords of Norway.
We said it at the beginning of the trip, and we meant it…this is not a cruise, it’s an expedition! Today’s plan was to land at Sundneset but when we arrived, we found the site completely blocked by ice. No problem. Within five minutes, the expedition leader and the bridge team had a plan B, a landing on another island just 30 minutes away. And what a plan B it was! A beautiful, icy beach that has witnessed over four centuries of Arctic history, including whalers, trappers, and scientists, all passed through here leaving behind countless stories that helped bring this place to life for our guests. Spring is slowly arriving on the island of Edgeøya. The snow is beginning to melt, the first birds are returning, plants are starting to grow, and reindeer were happily grazing near the landing site, starting their recovery after a long, harsh winter. This place is still mostly black and white, but in just a few weeks, it will be alive with greenery, flowers, and wildlife. A vivid reminder of the ever-changing nature of the High Arctic. Now we say goodbye to the high latitudes of Svalbard and begin our journey south to Bear Island—a solitary rock in the middle of the Barents Sea, and our final stop in this remote archipelago. The adventure continues!
There are few sights as splendid as a bird cliff in full flow, and Alkefjellet is about as good as it gets. Sat on the eastern side of Spitsbergen Island, the cliffs are made up of a dolerite intrusion into a sedimentary layer of limestone. The heat of the magma converted the limestone into a quasi-marble layer, and the resulting effect is a kind of reverse Oreo cookie appearance with a dark chocolate filling surrounded by pale cream biscuit. Having said that, the darker dolerite was today almost hidden beneath tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Brunnich’s guillemots. These, the most common members of the guillemot family here in Svalbard, have just arrived for their annual breeding season, a brief two months spent on the rocks before returning to their default habitat of the open ocean. Weighing just 600g, or just over a pound, these delightfully smart in appearance birds sport a feathered dinner suit – white belly and black back with just two cute little swirls of white on the rump. Their voices cry in a joking laugh, belying their vicious way of fighting over the narrow rock ledges where they must find room to nest.
