After a night cruising in the ice, we pushed forward with the ship into the heavy pack ice. Cruising in pack ice with an ice-enforced ship is an amazing experience. Since National Geographic Explorer is not an icebreaker, there is a limit to how much ice we can plow through. However, with our skilled captain, we were able to use the leads that sometimes open, and this gave us an opportunity to push forward deep into the pack ice.
Today we travelled along Reinsdyrflya (Reindeer Flat), and as we travelled in leads, we discovered some walrus hauled out on the ice. Two walrus illustrated how they use their tusks to haul themselves out of the water. It is good to see that the walrus numbers are increasing since they were protected in 1952 in Svalbard, and the population now is over 2000 animals, proving this to be a healthy population.
At the entrance of Woodfjord, we spotted another polar bear. It was a very skinny bear, not a “happy fat bear” as we call them when they are in good condition. The bear was walking along the shore, and it suddenly started sneaking up on some reindeer, but did not succeed in the final approach. Normally we don’t expect to see polar bears stalking reindeer, but with the lack of other prey nearby this bear chose to use energy on a hunting attempt that is normally not successful. The reindeer is faster over a longer distance, and can outrun a polar bear. With luck, it might be possible to kill a reindeer, and this has been recorded, but the polar bear is a marine mammal and lives most of the year feeding on seals on the frozen sea.
As we were dropping anchor and getting ready to start our afternoon Zodiac cruise we spotted a polar bear on one of the Andøyane (Duck) islands. The bear was raiding eider nests, which is not uncommon as sea ice diminishes, forcing bears to find food in other places. Since the polar bear was on land, we chose not to stress it more, so we did Zodiac cruises around the neighboring islands. We found some walrus hauled out on sea ice, and some in the sea swimming around the Zodiacs. Together with bearded seal and birds (king eider) this was a great Zodiac cruise. This great day ended with the ship cruising out from this beautiful fjord with a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains.
