Storfjord & Wahlenbergfjord, Svalbard
As an endless evening merged seamlessly into morning, the beautiful late night light we enjoyed while cruising through the pack ice turned into a grey and overcast morning with fog. But good fortune soon returned to our side and as we arrived at our planned anchorage in Storfjord we emerged from the fog into another clear morning.
We continued our exploration of the northern part of the Svalbard archipelago with hikes ashore and a chance to explore the tundra. The heavy snow fall of last winter has been slow to melt and much of the landscape was still blanketed in white. Careful exploration of the exposed areas of tundra revealed unexpected splashes of colour in the form of tiny flowers of the purple saxifrage. Several groups of reindeer were seen, mostly at a distance but giving a close encounter for a lucky few. The extensive late snow cover will make life on the edge even tougher for these hardy animals.
Later in the morning, while cruising out of Storfjord, we were spoiled for choice with a haul-out of walrus on the shore to port, while a polar bear stalked the shore to starboard. We then proceeded to Wahlenbergfjord where an afternoon of searching the ice in idyllic conditions produced more views of seals hauled out on ice floes and another distant speck of a polar bear on a vast expanse of shore-fast ice. While this was not exactly an ideal sighting, this distant view did serve to remind us just how fortunate we were to have our close encounter from the ship yesterday.
