A journey to Svalbard or Spitsbergen Day 4 part II

After having a great lunch at the Maryshev the journey continued. We headed out Smeerenburg Fjord towards the North into the pack ice.

The rest of the afternoon we would spend going through the pack ice. We reached the pack ice a few miles north of the island Klovingen. There was way more pack ice then the crew expected. The original plan was to cruise around the whole of Svalbard but because of the pack ice that was impossible. Here is a map to give you an idea of where we are.

this I found on the internet

The whole afternoon I was on the deck of the ship, just watching the beautifull scenery of the pack ice. Ice is like fire in my opinion, it never gets boring.

After cruising for a couple of hours we reached the magical latitude of 8o North. We were only 1111 kilometers or 695 miles away grom the North Pole!

We saw large groups of Harp seals passing, they are easy to recognize since they swim in large groups often with their bellies up.

We searched for the king of the Arctic, the Polar Bear but we were unlucky, we did not see it that afternoon. We did came across three Fin Whales, unfortunatly I missed them, I was a minute too late. The Fin Whale is the second largest animal on this planet.

fin whale.jpg

this picture I found on the internet

During the evening we headed south again, forced by the pack ice.
The pack ice is an amazing experience, you can see it from miles and miles away and it seems huge. Like an enourmous wall of ice. It never gets boring in my opinion.

Only 1 landing with the zodiac on day 4 and the rest of the day well spend on deck. No phones, no internet, no tv... it was awesome! Every now and then I went down to the bar to get some coffee or a nice cold beer. The help yourself bar was accessible 24 hours a day. Just don't forget to write down what you take. The cabin where I slept was small and had a bunkbed. The beds had a guard rail which is very usefull during stormy weather. We had one night with stormy weather.