Svalbard - a hungry polar bear and a fancy dress party (Throwback post)

Ivory Gull, Brepollen, Svalbard

Thursday saw us out on the zodiacs in the aptly named Brepollen (glacier bay).


The bay was beautiful, and we could easily have just spent the time admiring the view, with the little bergs, the ice calving off the edge, and the birds - including the squabbling arctic terns and the snowy white ivory gulls that got our birding contingent so excited again.

Brepollen, Svalbard

Brepollen, Svalbard

Brepollen, Svalbard

Polar Bear, Brepollen, Svalbard

However, our attention was quickly diverted by the sighting of a polar bear on the ice floes. Whilst we were thrilled to see another bear, we were also rather sad to see the state that this one was in.

His coat was dirty, likely from having made a long walk across land, but more importantly, he was very thin and seemed to be injured. He avoided putting one of his paws down, and was regularly licking it, so we assume that it was hurting him somehow.

Polar Bear, Brepollen, Svalbard

It is very sad to watch a creature like this, and not be able to do anything to help. I know that we have to not interfere, but I think many of us would happily have given up some of our dinner that night to give this poor bear a much needed meal. All we can do is hope that he managed to catch something soon, and that his injury healed.

Of course this harsher side of nature is inevitable, but it does seem so much worse when we know that our actions as humans are impacting on the bears' environment, and therefore their feeding grounds. I think that most of us left with a renewed sense that we must do our bit to help reduce climate change.

Brepollen, Svalbard

Polar Bear, Brepollen, Svalbard

Gnalodden, Svalbard

In the afternoon, we landed at Gnalodden, which was a great landing site, as it had a bit of everything.

There was a huge great cliff with more nesting birds, there was an unusual amount of moss and flora, there was a nice little bay (where those who felt so inclined did their polar plunge), and there was an old trapper's hut.

Wanny Woldstad's cabin, Gnalodden, Svalbard

The hut has been used by many people over the years, but its most famous resident was Wanny Woldstad. Wanny was a taxi driver in Tromso, but in 1932 she met and married a man named Anders Saeterdal, and came with him to Svalbard to live as a trapper.

he was the first female trapper to overwinter out here, and she later wrote a book about her experiences over the five years she was here.

Wanny Woldstad's cabin, Gnalodden, Svalbard

Gnalodden, Svalbard

Gnalodden, Svalbard

Still wearing the fancy dress 'beaks', Svalbard

In the evening, it was party time, complete with a fancy dress competition, with an arctic theme. Some of our fellow passengers had been aware of this event before the trip and had come prepared; we didn't know about it, so had to improvise.

Luckily, the sheets and towels in our cabins were all white, and we were able to beg and borrow some red card, scissors and sellotape. The five of us used the card to make ourselves red beaks, and together with white sheets for bodies, white towels for wings and black hats - or in Nic's case black pants - on our heads, we transformed ourselves into arctic terns.

Realising that our costumes weren't exactly fantastic, we decided to inject a bit of humour into the situation. We added to our costumes a clock, a hastily made joke book and halos, and introduced ourselves as an Arctic Tern, Tern Back Time, A Funny Tern, a Good Tern, and another Good Tern, because after all, one Good Tern deserves another! People seemed to like it, and we managed to get second place.

The rest of the evening was spent listening to the ship's staff band, and various passengers who also fancied a singalong.

Swimming polar bear, Svalbard

Friday was our last full day aboard, mostly spent wending our way along the coastline back to Longyearbyen, where we would anchor for the night before disembarking on Saturday morning.

We weren't really expecting to see very much, so we were quite happy to spot some reindeer on the hills, and then one last polar bear. The polar bear walked quite some distance along the shore line and then got into the sea and started swimming along.

Swimming polar bear, Svalbard

Swimming polar bear, Svalbard

Swimming polar bear, Svalbard

Reindeer, Svalbard

Spot the polar bear, Svalbard (right on the shore line, in the middle)

When we reached Longyearbyen, the Greenpeace ship Esperanza was in port, where it was protesting about climate change and against oil drilling in the Barents Sea. Apparently Emma Thompson was on board, supporting them. We did wonder whether we might be about to witness some trouble, as there was also a military looking ship there, but this Kystvakt turned out just to be the Norwegian Coastguard, so all was well.

Last night on ship, Svalbard

Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Greenpeace ship Esperanza, Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Longyearbyen, Svalbard

Neko Harbour and a polar plunge

In the morning we sailed a short distance into Andvord Bay for a landing at Neko Harbour.  Up until now, all of our landings have been on antarctic islands, but this one was a  continental landing.

There are relatively few places that the zodiacs can reasonably land on this part of the continent, but this is ideal.  Not only is it accessible in a relatively sheltered bay, but it actually has a sandy beach.

So when we landed, the sun was out and we were on a sandy beach.  OK so it was still cold, and there were ice and penguins everywhere, but still, this was the closest we were going to get to a beach holiday here.  So of course, some people decided to go swimming.  But we'll come back to that later.


We were slightly restricted walking around here as to one side is a huge glacier that calves into the sea.  When it does, you don't want to be on the beach nearby, as you are likely to get washed away by the waves it generates.


 It was nice to have the sun out for a change as it brought out the colours in the views.  With all of the snow, ice and penguins, the majority of the scenery here can look very monochrome, so is very noticeable when you suddenly get a splash of colour. 


Sometimes it is our clothing, or one of the remaining red refuge huts, sometimes it is a bit of bright blue ice, but today what caught my eye was the string of kayaks being towed along behind the zodiac.

It was the first time that the kayakers had got to go out again for a few days because they weren't able to go out in the strong winds, so I think they were pleased to see them too.

As usual there was a lot of penguin watching to be done and many photos taken.  There were some nice big lumps of ice on the beach, which also provided some good photo opportunities.


I was actually quite pleased that one of my fellow photography workshop attendees and the professional photographer himself both saw me taking a phot through the gap in a piece of ice and then did the same thing themselves.  They both had proper cameras, unlike my little point-and-shoot, and are probably both better at taking photos than I am, but I was pleased that I spotted the shot first at least!

The penguins here were quite interested in what was happening around them and gave me the opportunity for a few silly caption shots.  I have added a couple of the photos for fun, but in a separate posting.  I also quite enjoyed watching the ones that were drinking the drops of water coming from a bit of overhanging ice.

But back to the swimming.  For some strange reason, a bunch of people thought it would be a good idea to take a polar plunge.  This is obviously a regular activity here as the expedition leader had selected this spot as the best place and came prepared with lots of towels.

A dozen or so people stripped down to their swimwear, did a quick dip and ran out again fast.

A few were persuaded to pose for a quick photo op - I took a few of our new friends who were mad enough to do this, but I won't include any of the close up pictures here in case they'd rather not have them made public!  The swimmers were quickly given a zodiac trio back to the ship so that they could get warmed up again before lunch.