Day 3 - 11th. August 2023

 Day 3. 

Got up at 6.30 ish. Our first landing was on Gravneset Island in Magdelenja fjord. We were sorted by language and as the English speakers was by far the largest group, usually it was split in two. We first had to sort our life jackets and as we were the first group off, we were soon walking in our groups along the sand to a board that commemorates the whalers who lived and died here. The graveyard is a protected monument and one of the few places that has a fence. We had a talk about whaling and the whalers who lived here. As there are no trees on Svalbard, all wood had to brought in with them. We had a look at the remains of the blubber ovens. Then there was a walk up the cliff while I stayed down by a big rock. A couple of Arctic Terns sat on top of the rock and occasionally vocalised. 

The others walked up and saw some walruses in the distance, there were snow buntings and the usual kittiwakes and arctic terns, blk guillie about. As we came down it was time for a swim! We changed on the beach and Brenda, Sean, Jake and I went in . Brenda and I were more careful and it took a couple of efforts to finally find the courage to dip in. It was cold but not as unpleasant as I expected. Sean and Jake ran in and dived before playing with some ice. 

We went back to the boat and just as we were finishing lunch a call came that they had located a Polar bear on an island called Mosoya. We collected bins, cameras etc and ran up to the front in different parts of the ship. The bear wasn’t in sight to start with, but soon walked over the col and lay down in full view. It washed its paws, played with something, rolled over on its back and gave excellent views. Brilliant!

Our next landing was at the Smeerenburgbreen glacier where we walked over some moraine to stand on the end of the glaciers. It was quite interesting to see the surface of the glacier, which was much less slippery than I expected.  for walrus, 2 Brad seal, landings for whaling talk, with swim, back to ship, lunch, on to glacier landing. Just before dinner, walrus and b/seal. Blue whale in evening

Dinner