PLA07-24, trip log, Around Spitsbergen, In the realm of Polar Bear & Ice

Today is the day! It’s finally time for us to embark upon our Arctic adventure! In the late afternoon, we arrived at our ship, m/v Plancius, which was to be our new home for the next 10 days. She rocked gently against the pier as we climbed the gangway onto the decks. The day was suitably Arctic, cloudy with a chilly wind – but we were warm and comfortable aboard. We checked in and were escorted to our respective cabins. After this, we could begin to explore the ship, wandering the decks and getting familiar with our new home.

Once we were all aboard, we were invited to the lounge to take part in a mandatory briefing and an abandon ship drill. Not too long after our initial briefing we were invited back to the lounge by our expedition leader, Christophe, ready for the captain’s cocktails. Here we met our captain, Ernesto Barria, and the expedition team. We celebrated our expedition with some bubbles and canapes before we all enjoyed our first dinner on board!

We all filed down to the restaurant for a delicious buffet and an opportunity to meet some of our fellow travelers. At the same time, we set sail from Longyearbyen, ready for our upcoming adventure. The day was not yet complete! After dinner, we located the boot room and collected our rubber ‘muck’ boots. We were one step closer to being able to start our off-ship activities.

The rest of the evening was spent enjoying our first evening cruise and the never-ending daylight before returning to our cabins to rest in preparation for tomorrow’s adventure!

Today, we were woken up for the first time by our expedition leader, Christophe, as we had already entered the Kongsfjorden and were approaching Kronebreen, our first stop for a Zodiac cruise. Before commencing our outdoor activities, we had to attend some important mandatory briefings. After breakfast, we all headed to the lecture lounge, where Christophe first talked about our Zodiac procedures and how to wear our life vests. He then proceeded with the polar bear safety briefing to make our landings as safe as possible for us and the polar bears. We also watched the AECO briefing which gave us an overview of the do’s and don’ts here in Svalbard.

We were finally ready for our first Zodiac cruise! We boarded nine different Zodiacs which took us all along the Kronebreen. Right next to Plancius there was a bearded seal on an ice floe. The seal was very relaxed, every single Zodiac was able to have a good look and observe the rusty red face and the characteristic long and dense whiskers. Our expedition guides took us all along the glacier front where we saw several bird species, as well as beautiful blue bergy bits.

It was then time to return to Plancius for a delicious lunch prepared by our top chef Khabir, and also to reposition the ship to Ny-Ålesund, the international research station. Whilst in the vicinity, we had to switch the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi settings off on all of our devices in order to not interfere with the research carried out on plate tectonics.

We were shuttled by Zodiacs to the pier and we were then free to roam inside the town limits. We had enough time to explore the small but interesting settlement before joining Michelle at the Amundsen monument to go to the balloon mast, escorted by Paolo and Andi who were carrying rifles for polar bear safety. Once Michelle was finished with her story telling and explanations, we were approached by a local researcher informing us that a polar bear had been spotted 1km from us and that they had sent their rifle patrol to rescue a group who had found themselves close to the bear with no possibility for shelter. Our guides escorted us back to the pier where we boarded our Zodiacs to head back to the ship. Everything which had been explained during the polar bear safety briefing in the morning now made absolute sense.

Back on the ship, it was time for our first recap where Christophe took the time to explain all of the maritime concepts and units to us such as, nautical miles, and our glaciologist Jakub gave us a short introduction about glaciers and his work in Svalbard, hopefully to be extended into a full lecture, if we have the time for it.

It was then time for dinner, after which many of us met in the lounge for a drink and to share our impressions of the first day.

As we awoke to Christophe’s French tones with his wake-up call at 07:15 AM, we knew it would be a good day! The sun was shining with a partly overcast sky at the southeastern branch of the beautiful Raudfjorden, and everyone was looking forward to stretching their legs. The expedition team prepared for departure to land the Zodiacs on the beach and half-load their rifles to scout for polar bears. The relentless wind, however, reached over 30 knots, so the decision was made to try to find a more sheltered spot on the southwestern end of Raudfjorden.

It soon turned out to be a brilliant idea. As soon as we changed location, the wind weakened and we received a green light to go from the expedition leader and the bridge. The first guests arrived at the beach at 09:30 am, all geared up and wrapped up warmly. We split into three groups – the leisurely, medium and long hikers, all exploring the area at their optimal pace. Long hikers went to the top of a ridge covered in boulders to see the panoramic views over the entire fjord system. Raudfjorden is where Willem Barents discovered Svalbard, giving it the name Spitsbergen, i.e. spiky mountains. Our expedition team introduced us to everything interesting they could spot – from stones and plants to glaciers and old fox traps.

At 11:30, we started to make our way back to the vessel for some much-needed tea and lunch made by the wonderful galley team.

After lunch, we prepared to arrive at 2:30 pm at Hamiltonbukta, a spectacular bay in the north part of the fjord. Here we embarked Zodiacs and cruised along the shores of the bay. The first attraction was a steep rock face occupied by a colony of common guillemots and kittiwakes. With calm and sunny weather, we then admired five glaciers, one next to another, descending down to the sea level from the valleys surrounding the bay.

Once back onboard, just before dinner, we gathered again in the lounge for a recap introducing the plans for tomorrow by Christophe and short presentations by our guides about some of the things we had observed today. Subsequently we went to the dining room for another delicious feast.

This was a fantastic day, and we are happy there are many more days left of our arctic adventure.

Today, our expedition leader Christophe allowed us to sleep a little longer, delivering our daily wakeup call at 7:45am. Plancius was positioned at the edge of the pack ice, an incredible sight to start our day. The weather was a little overcast and outside temperatures dropped down to -2 degrees Celsius. After a hearty breakfast, we headed out on deck to be mesmerized by the beauty of this remote area. We slowly started making our way into the ice and between floes, which increased in numbers. Both guests and the expedition team scouted for wildlife around the ship. We observed birds flying past the ship including, fulmars, guillemots, and kittiwakes.

We headed further north, during which time Jakub presented us with a lecture in the observation lounge about the state and fate of the sea ice. The lecture was well attended and was extremely informative and interesting. Soon after we had lunch and after a short rest, scouting for wildlife continued. Every once in a while fog rolled in, but this underlined the uniqueness of these surreal surroundings. The team eventually spotted a juvenile hooded seal that we could observe resting on an ice floe. To warm us all up and to take in the surroundings together, the crew prepared an afternoon hot chocolate party on the upper deck behind the bridge. For those that wanted a little extra warmth there was the option to have some rum with the hot chocolate, What a nice treat!

Eventually, the wall of fog became so thick that we had to sail out of it heading southwards again. To keep us entertained, Paolo gave us a lecture about the history of the North Pole exploration which was enjoyed by many of us warming up in the lounge. Later that evening Christophe delivered his daily recap, and guides Pierre and Emily introduced us to the seal species we had seen today, the hooded seal, and to the Arctic tern which makes a huge annual migration from the Arctic to Antarctica! After our delicious dinner we relaxed in the warmth of the lounge with some hot drinks before heading to bed for some well-deserved rest after all of our scouting.

The highest latitude we reached today was 80°40.422`North.

The morning started with a long, exploratory Zodiac cruise in Claravågen west of Nordauslandet. The day was very calm with almost no wind and clear skies to start. We sailed through a narrow entrance, Claravågsundet into the Claravågen, a vast area with pebbled beaches and perfectly calm waters inside. We observed many seabirds, primarily black guillemots, brent geese and a nesting arctic skua but it is the landscape that really steals the show here. As we continued moving deeper into the lagoons, we entered Arovika first and then, after sailing through a narrow river, we come out into Wärmelaguna. We travelled in the Zodiacs past a small glaucus gull colony, and everybody was amazed by the effective camouflage of the chicks! In some cases, we could be staring straight into a standing, apparently lonely adult, with two invisible chicks standing either side. The little birds perfectly faded into the cliff background, the ideal camouflage, with only their eyes giving them away when looking very carefully. We also found an old, small, abandoned rowing boat, we were not sure about the exact origin but it likely relates to scientific work carried out many decades ago.

As we sailed back out of this series of lagoons, the fog started to close in, by the time we are all out of the water and preparing ourselves ready for lunch, the flag on the bow of Plancius was no longer visible. After some consideration we changed our afternoon plans and travelled across the Hinlopenrenna to Eolusneset in the Sorgfjorden.

The name Sorgjorden or “Sorrow fjord” was used since the 17th century as a reminder of the troubles that whalers had faced in this area. Here we landed at a place called Eolusneset. Once on land we divided up in to three groups, offering different levels of hiking.

Right next to the landing site was a hill covered with huge rocks and a cross located on the top. The cross was erected by a skipper of AEOLUS, a Norwegian sealing ship that was chartered by several expeditions to Spitzbergen which was trapped in the ice in Sorgfjorden in 1855. Behind the cross are 30 graves, dating back from the 16th and 17th century, from the period of western European whaling. The number of graves grew over the years as it was the same few selected places that were used as burial grounds during the whaling era.

On the landing was an old trapper hut, which looked from a distance quite intact. However, on closer inspection, the side facing the shore was broken. It was amazing how tiny the hut was, however! For the trapper it was not the main winter hut, but one of many auxiliary huts related to a main trapper hut, used only for days and not for weeks. Huts like this were used as stepping stones for covering a bigger area. The sun was shining, and we all enjoyed our time on shore.

We also had our first observation of the Atlantic walrus with two hauled out and resting on the beach.

We had been at anchor for much of the night, but in the early morning the engine was started, and the anchor was hauled up. We woke up in Hinlopen strait and our outing this morning was a Zodiac cruise along the bird cliffs of Alkefjellet. The original name of this place was ‘Mount Guillemot’, for obvious reasons! About 65,000 breeding pairs of Brünnich’s guillemot use this dolerite intrusion to lay their cone-shaped egg on narrow ledges. Both parents sit for 32 days and feed the chick for three weeks, until the day arrives when it has to jump down from the cliff. On these cliffs, the birds have found a natural fortress to help defend against predators. However, we could see a glaucous gull eating a guillemot. The rocky columns in the northern part of the cliff resemble skyscrapers making the entire bird colony an analogue for a vivid city where everyone is busy and noisy, as guillemots seemed to rush to their everyday duties. We continued our cruise along the base of the cliffs, then at the end of the cliff we faced a spectacular glacier steeply descending from the highlands down to the sea. Around 11 AM we headed back to the ship where a well-prepared lunch was soon served. Sunny and calm weather with ideal visibility was a memorable experience, definitely one of the highlights of the expedition!

After our lunch Plancius turned south. Since we have not yet spotted a polar bear, our expedition leader Christophe and captain Ernesto decided to explore a group of small rocky islands further south in Hinlopen strait with hopes of showing us the king of the Arctic. The weather was absolutely terrific with clear sky, no wind and temperature of 12 degrees Celsius – far above the norm for July. The expedition team patiently scanned the area with binoculars and their efforts were finally rewarded. At 1:30 PM Christophe announced they found a polar bear! We rushed to the outside decks with binoculars and the longest lenses we had to capture this magnificent animal. It was peacefully sleeping on top of a rocky ridge, raising its head once in a while. As we did not want to disturb its siesta, we stayed at a safe distance of some hundreds of meters and remained as quiet as possible. Then, to make this day even more special, just before 3 PM, our ship moved to another island where a second bear was spotted! This one had apparently finished its nap, as it vigorously explored its own stretch of land walking majestically up and down along a rocky ridge. Both of these sightings were like a dream come true for so many of us.

About 6 PM we abandoned the archipelago of small islands and soon afterwards gathered in the lounge for a recap. This evening’s dinner was unlike any previous one. Plancius anchored in a glacial bay in east Spitsbergen for a polar barbeque on the outside decks! We laughed and danced until the late hours waiting for the sun to set…

But obviously, we sunbathed until 10:30 PM instead.

Sundneset this morning, we landed by an old but well-preserved cabin Wϋrzburger Hϋtte,

We received an early wakeup call today! It was unusual to hear Christophe on the PA at 06:45 but there was good reason for it. Another polar bear sighting, it feels like bears have been raining on us over the last couple of days. The bear was roaming around the black legged kittiwake bird cliffs we were intending to visit. Surely, he/she was trying to get some food from the bird nests - eggs and chicks if there was any opportunity. However, the bear decided it was time to swim and went into the water to cross the fjord. New polar bear observation guidelines mean we are requested to retreat and leave the area if we see a swimming bear and that is exactly what we did. Aside from these rules, it is not safe (for either the bear or us) to land in a place with a bear on land or swimming nearby.

Plan B! We continued sailing west along the Freemansundet to a place called Sundneset and the Würszburger Hütte. The hut was built by Julius Bϋdel’s Stauferland Expedition in 1959-1967 dedicated to natural history, especially Geomorphology.

We divided into different hiking groups and had beautiful, quiet, and very photo friendly reindeer encounters.

We also found ancient, 5000+ years old whale bones in places where they should not have been, we learnt isostatic rebound had raised these beaches from the sea level and that’s why we were finding so many seashells and whale bones higher up then would be expected.

We also observed red throated divers, long tailed ducks, red phalarope, and other beautiful species of Arctic birds.

In the afternoon we sailed out of Freemansund to the NW tip of Edgeøya, here our intention was to land at Kapp Lee. In the 18th and 19th century many walruses were slaughtered here with over 400 skulls littering the shoreline, missing their tusks laying piled up to one side. More happily, today, the walrus have reclaimed the place as theirs and haul out peacefully in numbers at the very same beach on which they once suffered. Unfortunately, or fortunately! Our landing had to be cancelled due to yet more polar bear sightings! This time two individuals were roaming around on the tundra, a very large, likely male bear and a slightly smaller one. We suspected from our observations that the reason for these two otherwise lonely animals to be together was most likely linked to mating, it appeared that the larger male was being extremely patient and following the female. We launched our Zodiacs and approached closer to get a good look at both the bears and walrus to distances that complied with wildlife observations and non-disturbance rules. It was a beautiful time, especially with the walrus.

We return to the ship and then with warm drinks gather in the lounge to listen to Christoph’s interesting polar bear lecture as we begin to make our way south. We have a long transit before our next destination, Hornsund.

On the eighth day of our trip, as usual our expedition leader Christophe woke us up at 7.15am. Outside the temperature was 1 degree Celsius and the fog was dense. After breakfast we received the message that our planned landing site was clear, so we were excited for another day of adventure! Our first landing should be Hyrneodden in the Hornsund. Hornsund is the southernmost fjord of the Spitsbergen Archipelago and is 30km deep. Again we were lucky with nice weather, sunshine and no wind at the landing beach. Soon after we chose our preferred hiking groups we began our walks. The surrounding landscape was spectacular with beautiful mountain ranges, some of them caressed by clouds. The guides spotted a few lunge feeding humpback whales in the fjords ahead of us. We observed some nesting Arctic skua. Afterwards for those that were brave, there was the possibility for the polar plunge in the cold Arctic waters. Some of us thoroughly enjoyed the cold dip in the water! After we returned to Plancius, a few lucky ones even spotted some beluga whales close to the shoreline. After our hearty lunch we still had the possibility to observe the feeding humpback whales and one of those gave us a whale of a time by performing some acrobatics such as pectoral fin slaps and breaching. We enjoyed that very much! Our afternoon activity was a zodiac cruise at the Paierlbreen in Burgerbukta. The glacier was embedded in between two steep mountain ranges and we could easily observe the many waterfalls coming down from the glaciers. Some of them created vivid orange lines in the rocks due to a high amount of iron and sulfur. We continued our way through the ice and bigger icebergs slowly to the edge where the ice was very dense and a little challenging to maneuver through with the zodiacs. Here we were very lucky and many of us observed two ivory gulls. Very popular amongst birders and an aesthetically beautiful bird to watch. We observed the ivory gulls for a while until we started to explore more of the surrounding brash ice and bergs. Once back onboard, Christophe awaited us with an extended recap where we listened to talks from Jakub about the glacier we just visited, and from Ross about the ivory gull and Andi learning more about humpback whales. Christophe himself gave us a briefing about our final day of activities and then we headed to the dining room for another delicious dinner. What a beautiful day we had!

Christophe woke us up this morning to a beautiful view of an area of tundra called Bamsebu. Right after breakfast we all embarked the Zodiacs for our landing. This place was a beluga whale hunting station and the beach next to the cabin is filled with the remains of approximately 550 belugas which were slaughtered here. We divided in the three usual hiking groups. The only difference was that the long hikers walked from the landing beach in Bamsebu to the very opposite area called Fleur de Lys. Along our hikes we learned about the past hunting history and about belugas. We observed reindeer along the way, a couple of harbor seals hauled out on rocks, some eider ducks and two red-throated divers flew over us. The landscape was also very interesting, ranging from polar desert to Arctic tundra, with all the characteristic plants and flowers associated with it.

As we repositioned the ship, it was time for lunch, but just minutes before the dining room opened, Christophe announced on the PA system that one of our guests had spotted yet another polar bear. Our captain Ernesto positioned Plancius so that we could observe the bear from a safe distance without disturbing it. It was first sitting on an island, then it started walking around, grabbing a piece of skin, and chewing on it. It was difficult to tell exactly what kind of skin the bear had found. Then it decided to lay down and we all had time for a quick lunch. After lunch, the bear was still there, and we could observe it for another 10 minutes before departing. We had to leave because the bear was spotted in a bird sanctuary, and we were not allowed to get closer to the Zodiacs.

As we arrived at our afternoon destination, the beach was lined with belugas swimming along the shoreline. Unfortunately, they had mysteriously disappeared by the time we had lowered the Zodiacs. We all went ashore for our last landing in Ingeborgfjellet. A TV crew was on site, and our expedition leader, Christophe, communicated with them to avoid interfering with their work. We then went to the little auk cliff, which harbors thousands of these cute birds. Michelle led the way and went up on the side of the colony to mark the highest point to which we could distribute ourselves. We then sat very quietly to avoid disturbing them, and we all observed their flights in huge groups as they were all producing their characteristic sounds, which resembled laughs. After about an hour, we detected a large male reindeer behind us. This magnificent reindeer had huge antlers, and Christophe took a group to look at it. Michelle then found an arctic fox which was running on the edge of the little auk colony, probably looking for an easy meal. We were all able to observe this little predator as it made its way to its den.

It was then time to go back to Plancius for our captain’s farewell cocktail, and Ross showed us the slideshow he had been working on during the entire trip. We all got very emotional seeing all of the places we had been to, and all the wonders we had witnessed. We were then all called for our last plated dinner prepared by our chef Khabir and his galley team. It was excellent as usual.

What an amazing expedition trip this has been, and our brains are still processing all the beautiful experiences we have had!

All too soon we arrived back in Longyearbyen and it was time to say our goodbyes. The staff and crew took care of our luggage, placing it carefully on the dock. We had our last breakfast aboard Plancius then gathered the last of our things and headed for the gangway. We said goodbye to the whole team onboard and alighted the bus waiting for us to start the long journey home or to our next adventure.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and support, but most of all for joining us on this exploratory North Atlantic voyage. We hope to see you again in the future, wherever that might be!

Total distance sailed: 1054.6 nautical miles

Farthest north: 80°40.42’N

On behalf of Oceanwide Expeditions, Captain Ernesto Barria, Expedition Leader Christophe Bouchoux, Hotel Manager Oleksandr Lyebyedyev, and all the crew and staff of m/v Plancius, it has been a pleasure traveling with you!