Hooker Island
Our Sunday morning began as our vessel quietly sailed into the center of the archipelago approaching Hooker Island. The island is named after British botanist Josef Dalton Hooker. This island is mostly known for its spectacular seabird cliff in Tikhaya Bay, Rubini Rock. Tikhaya Bay, as stated in its name (Calm Bay), met us with calm seas and fine weather as the sun glanced through the clouds and the air temperature was just below zero. It was decided to explore the surrounding beauty as closely as possible, so the Zodiacs and kayaks were launched immediately after breakfast. Until lunch, guests enjoyed the amazing geological structures of Rubini Rock, which is an excellent example of a dyke with classical columnar basalts. While kayaking at the bottom of the massif cliffs with clouds of birds above one could feel the majesty of the Arctic wilderness. The outstanding rock is home to more than twenty thousand seabirds including Brunnich’s guillemots, black-legged kittiwakes, little auks, black guillemots, glaucous gulls, and fulmars. This is one of the few, if any, places in the archipelago where all these species breed together.
Tikhaya Bay was named during the Russian expedition aimed at the North Pole and which overwintered here in 1912/13. Later, in 1929, the first Soviet polar weather station was established here. Soon it became a research base and operated until 1957, after that it was used for seasonal research projects until the 1990s. At the peak of its activity, the station held up to 60 people, and three children were born here.
Several notable events connected to this place are worth mentioning. On January 12, 1930, radio officer, Ernst Krenkel, set a record for short-wave radio connection when he suddenly heard in his headset: “Dear Sir, apparently, we can congratulate each other on a set of the world record for the radio connection. You have reached radio of American Antarctic expedition of Admiral Byrd. My congratulations”! Next summer, July 1931, German zeppelin LZ-127 with an international research team on board landed in the bay. This was the only scientific aerial survey in the Arctic from a dirigible. At the bay the dirigible met the steam ice-class vessel Malygin with the first ever tourists cruising the archipelago. One of them was Umberto Nobile, Italian engineer who constructed and commanded two Arctic dirigibles Norge and Italia in 1926 and 1928.
The wooden houses of Tikhaya Bay station are clearly visible at the coast just opposite of Rubini Rock. This season it became home to a small party sent by National Park Russian Arctic to re-establish a research program in the archipelago and conduct a preparatory work for clean-up operations.
After a great morning in Tikhaya Bay we set our course eastwards in search of ice-associated wildlife. We found ice-filled water just off the southeastern shores of the archipelago. The efforts were granted in full! Our falcon-eyed naturalists spotted from the bridge three bowhead whales, several belugas, and a number of polar bears. The first bear was resting on the shore at a great distance, and we did not approach him, while the next sightings provided a great opportunity to see different behavior and animal conditions.
We were lucky to watch undisturbed Arctic wildlife thanks to an excellent job by our captain and his officers on the bridge, and we really appreciated it.
