Nothing is better than waking up to a clear blue sky, crisp air, and ice everywhere from the many fjords that reach the sea in the intricate system of Hornsund. Oh wait, there are polar plunges! And oh! Whales! But let me comeback to that later…

The mountains that flank both sides of the fjord, sheer vertical walls that could not do anything but witness the advance of glaciers during the past glaciation, are a magnificent, sublime scenery. We took advantage of this setting and the great weather to explore the area during the morning in different outings. Zodiac cruises quickly departed to encounter a numbers of kittiwakes snow bathing in an attempt to get rid of salt in their feathers, couples of barnacle geese fighting each other for the best boulders to nest on, and bergs. Bergs of all sizes and shades of shiny blue littered the calm waters, crackling constantly as they melt under the unusual high temperatures.

Around a corner, the mean ice machine waits for us. A massive tidewater glacier faced us, its towering vertical front exceeding 70 meters above the water in places. As fantastic as it looks, this is a small sample of what glaciers used to be in the area only a few years ago, as the fresh moraines and remnant pieces of ice left after its constant retreat can attest.

Kayaking was another great option to enjoy the morning, the swift sounds of the paddles being the only non-natural sounds to be heard while finding what was behind those massive bergs or having a close up of some deserted beaches.

Yet, none of that magnificence seemed enough. Some thrill seekers had to go the extra mile. They had to jump into the frigid waters of the fjord and become polar swimmers! Yes!

In the afternoon we sailed out to sea on a course designed to sail over a drop off, an area where the bottom of the seas suddenly drop hundreds of meters into the abyss and the upwelling created by the currents as they hit the underwater slope bring nutrients to the surface that otherwise would not be available to most wildlife.

We searched the waters for marine mammals and were lucky enough to find three species of whales! A group of 10-12 fin and blue whales, the two largest species of animals to ever roam the planet showed really well. But the best came last, at least a pair of humpbacks were actively feeding right in front of the bow of the Explorer and showing their flukes time after time in the process giving ample opportunities for filling up those last gigabytes of space in our memory cards. What a fantastic end of a trip in which we were indeed privileged to find the most charismatic wildlife of the Arctic!