Hinlopen Strait and Nordaustlandet, Svalbard
“The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around. It cracked and growled and roared and howled like noises in a swound.”
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner)
A true expedition day in the ice is always something to look forward to, for both the uninitiated as well as those of us in-the-know aboard the National Geographic Explorer. With no set destination or itinerary literally anything can (and usually does) happen on these spontaneous forays into the cracking, growling, roaring and howling ice. You just never know what opportunities might present themselves when you simply go and search.
At these latitudes we experience true polar daylight, where there is of course no sunset or sunrise. After a restful sleep under the midnight sun we awoke to find the ship just entering the pack ice of Hinlopen Strait. First year sea ice parted and then slid easily along the length of our hull, making soft scraping noises as it went. The dazzling light reflected off the ice was almost blinding, and the air was warm and dry. We spotted the first seals and walrus hauled out on small ice floes, basking in the sun’s golden warmth. The walrus in particular barely deigned to lift their heads at our approach, preferring to stretch out in a supine position next to the water’s edge.
As we rounded the southwestern corner of Nordaustlandet (the second largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago) the massive Austfonna ice cap came into view. Austfonna is the third largest ice cap on our planet; only Antarctica and Greenland are larger. The ice face runs uninterrupted for almost 100 miles, at a height of 35 to 100 feet. With the warm summer days to help melt it, waterfalls are present along much of this ice face. Cruising for composition along the face of the ice cap, Captain Oliver Kruess maneuvered the ship close to the face to allow photographers to get just the right perspective as melt water was cascading from the top of the shelf into the ocean below.
The afternoon found us continuing our magical day into the ice looking for polar bears as well as more pinnipeds. After an excellent presentation by Steve MacLean about ice bears the call came from the bridge that sharp eyes had spotted a swimming polar bear now hauled out onto an ice floe. With excited but muffled speed we worked our way out onto the forward-looking decks to view and photograph the bear, but capricious fog chose this exact time to hide both ice and bear in its clutches. Such is the weather here in Svalbard, and one can only smile as our opportunity for bear viewing literally vanished into the mists!
The fog continued to surround the ship for much of the afternoon and early evening, but finally burned off after dinner and our day continued just as it had started, basking in the Svalbard sun and working our way through the ice of Hinlopen Strait.
