During the night, the officers and the captain took us all the way around the southern tip of Spitsbergen and a fair way up the wilder and even more remote east coast. This coastline is completely empty of human inhabitants and is a true wilderness.
The morning started quite suddenly with our expedition leader Lucho´s voice over the PA announcing that he was sad to wake us up a bit too early (the time was 06.45!), but there was a walrus spotting! It was a mother and a calf, but they took to the water before most of us had got out of bed. The weather today was absolutely perfect and it wasn’t long before we spotted more walruses. In fact, the seemed to be everywhere, lying on the pack ice that we’re travelling along. We also spot bearded seals enjoying the sunshine on the ice. As the morning turned into the afternoon, we continued to spot animals on the ice with such frequency that the announcements twice interrupted our lecture from Carl-Erik.
During lunch, the long awaited polar bear announcement finally came! Soon afterwards the dining room was empty as we raced to catch a glimpse. The bear was far away, but the captain skilfully took us closer and closer.
After our bear encounter, fog swept in and choked all visibility so we set sail east towards the island of Edgeøya to land. Along the way we had a surprise BBQ from the crew with homemade hotdogs served with beer on the sun deck. As we ate and enjoyed lunch the sun decided to peek out again, making the afternoon perfect. So perfect, in fact, that our guest speaker Francis had to wait a while before she was able to begin her lecture as we all wanted to soak in the sunshine outside!
Once the lecture was finished we had our daily Cocktail Hour and Recap where we learned about blue whales, polar bears and plants. After dinner we went on a Zodiac cruise to go off in search of walruses. It was a perfect evening for a cruise as there was lots of sunshine, no wind and a beautiful landscape. During our one-hour outing we got to see walruses hauled out on ice and some of us even got to see an Arctic fox as well as reindeer feeding.
