Freemansundet and Årdalsnuten, Edgøya, SE Svalbard
How blessed we are! After a stormy entrance to Hinlopen Strait last night, with surging waves and a buffeting wind, we awake to halcyon seas and clear, bright sunshine. We are approaching the north shore of Edgeøya, a large island in the south-east of Svalbard. The sun lights up the gold and green tints of the tundra on its lower flanks, and etches deep shadows in sepia brown mountains where snowmelt has gouged out vertical gullies. We have received a tip-off from another expedition ship that there is a whale carcass washed up ashore which has been the scene of a month-long banquet for the bears. Scanning from the bridge we find the site and within half an hour, our fleet of Zodiacs are down and we are speeding to the shore. There it is – a whale skeleton stretched across the beach, chewed down to the vertebrae, with the 8-foot skull lying hauled to one side. Above the remains of the carcass, two bears lie sprawled on their bellies, asleep in the sun and sand. The scene looks like the aftermath of an all-night party: scanning the scene we note more bears spread-eagled in the tundra, two more further down the beach, three up high on a slope, another fast asleep a mile away, 100 feet up the hill. After 10 minutes scanning, the total is 13 bears in the area, all blotto after a whale of a feast. Down from the slopes comes a late partygoer, a young male still with an appetite for an all-day breakfast. But his appearance is too much for a huge male above the beach, who staggers to his feet and glares at the rival. The younger bear scampers away. Our bloated blackguard, filthy brown from days of wallowing shoulder deep in blubber, waddles down to the carcass, but a sleeping bear nearby is up and lunges, growling a warning. To our amazement, this scrawny female, half the size of Bluto, chases him back up the bank. He stands there, somewhat embarrassed by being given the bum’s rush, while she returns to the skull and chews on some of the remaining morsels on bones already scraped clean by feasting. For these bears, this beached whale has been a god-given bonanza at a time when they can expect no food for months. The fat they can lay down at this time will see them through another seven months before they can prey once again on seal pups in the spring. For a female who may well already be pregnant, and committed to four months inside a winter den suckling two hungry cubs, it could be a lifeline.
An afternoon attempt to land at Russebukta further down the coast was abandoned within minutes of the scout boat landing; before we had even loaded rifles, we spotted two bears on a rock ridge further inland, and with no wish to appear on their autumn menu, we retreated smartly. But we managed to turn retreat into victory, for en route for an alternative landing, sharp eyes on the bridge spotted tall blows on the sunlit horizon: whales! So it was that our day ended alongside feeding fin and humpback whales, spray bursting from their backs as they surfaced, each with a cloud of excited kittiwakes dancing above them like butterflies. Another dazzling demonstration of the richness of these Arctic summer seas, fizzing with marine life so abundant that it supports a menagerie of seals, whales, birds and bears.
