91Èȱ¬

Day 2 saw us in Ny-alesund. Another 47 miles north we anchored off Fuglesangen in rather foggy conditions and a somewhat cooler temperature of 5 degrees celsius.Ìý It was breezy as we set off in the Zodiac to make a landing at the little auk colony.

The little auk is one of the iconic High Arctic bird species and, having only ever seen them in small numbers in the UK, the prospect of seeing thousands of them was really exciting.

Landing at Fuglesangen was quite spectacular itself as the fog lifted into low cloud, shrouding the surrounding snow-capped mountains.Ìý We climbed up the boulder scree slope with parties of little auks flying around us as they returned from feeding trips out at sea to their nests amongst the boulders.

It was simply a matter of finding a likely looking spot and standing still and the birds were soon landing all around.Ìý Those that had been feeding had noticeably swollen throats as they had crops full of plankton.

Little auks in Svalbard

Some birds are simply utterly charming and little auk is definitely one such species.Ìý There is just something benign about them and having them fly around us with their quiet, strangely hooting, chatter was unforgettable.

Whilst I was filming the little auks an Arctic fox appeared and I managed to capture a few seconds of footage as it disappeared into its den in the rocks and later another came down to the beach, much to the consternation of the nesting snow buntings.

A whale of a time

After lunch, the sun came out and we visited the long abandoned Dutch whaling settlement of Ytre Norskoya.Ìý Here were the remains of blubber ovens and whalers' graves.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a thriving industry around Svalbard and tens of thousands of whales were killed for their meat, oil and blubber -Ìý almost 33,000 between 1675 and 1721 alone, when there were almost 6,000 ships operating.

There can be no doubt that life for the whalers was almost unimaginably hard, miles from home for months at a time, living on a meagre diet in a very hostile environment, but what I found so sobering was just how, over the space of a century or so, with only the most basic equipment, the whalers almost completely exterminated the inshore populations of many whale species.

When the whaling dried up, so did the industry.Ìý A classic example of how mankind has the capacity to exploit a natural resource to the point of exhausting it, without any thought about managing it more wisely.

Watcher of the skies

The evening was spent in glorious sunshine as we steamed ever northward towards Moffen Island, where we hoped to encounter our first walruses of the trip.Ìý In so doing we crossed 80 degrees north, just 600 miles from the North Pole.

It's something of a milestone on any expedition cruise around Svalbard, especially so this year with the sea ice so far south.

We all gathered on deck to toast the event but sadly, as we closed on Moffen Island (and had distant telescope views of the walruses) the fog closed in. However, this did yield a remarkable high latitude meteorological phenomenon known as a halo, which I had never seen before.

With the sun high in the sky, behind the ship and to our left as we looked straight ahead into the fog, there appeared to be a white bow (like a rainbow but less distinct and pure white) in the sky. Not quire the aurora borealis, but very peculiar nonetheless.

We turned south and headed for Woodfjorden and, late in the day, the fog lifted quite suddenly and I found myself looking out onto low strands running along the edge of the wide entrance to the fjord with a backdrop of spectacular mountain scenery.Ìý It was well after 11 o'clock and most of the passengers had retired for the night whilst it was still foggy.

A minke whale

I just had a hunch that the habitat looked right for polar bear and so I began scanning in earnest.Ìý I had already had distant views of a small group of harp seals and a single cetacean (almost certainly a minke whale) when, at about five to midnight, I found my first wild polar bear!Ìý It wasn't particularly close, but through the telescope there was no mistake as it patrolled the tundra, occasionally stopping and raising its head to sniff the air, all the time being mobbed by Arctic terns.

Just five of us (and the officer on watch on the bridge) saw the bear and so, when we finally lost it to view at about a quarter to one in the morning we all realised that the pressure was now on to find another one for the other 43 passengers.

What a day!