91Èȱ¬

To the north east of Spitsbergen, the westernmost of the large islands in the Svalbard group, lies Nordaustlandet (North East Land).Ìý The two are separated by the Hinloppen Strait and it was on the western side of the strait that we started the day, at Alkefjellet, home to over 100,000 Brunnich's guillemots.

Rather like the day on which we'd visited the little auk colony at Fugelsangen it was cool (7 degrees celsius), foggy and breezy as we set off in the Zodiac inflatable boatsÌý to view the seething colony of guillemots.Ìý As well as being a hive of activity, seabird colonies are usually noisy and smelly and Alkefjellet was no exception.Ìý

The sheer basalt cliffs, rising to a height of over a thousand feet, were alive with birds nesting on narrow ledges.Ìý In addition, there were large groups of birds on the water and the air was full of birds flying to and from the colony.

The Brunnich's guillemot is similar to the common guillemot that nests in the UK, but it is an extremely rare bird away from the Arctic.Ìý I had seen one before (in Shetland in 1989) so seeing thousands together was thrilling.

Guillemots belong to a family of seabirds called auks, which includes the little auk, the razorbill and the puffin.Ìý Superficially similar in appearance to penguins – and equally well-adapted swimmers and divers – the one key difference is that auks are powerful flyers.

Milky brown water

We cruised along the cliffs with birds all around to the snout of the glacier, where the fresh melt-water from the glacier turned the seawater a milky brown. There was a clear demarcation in the water between the milky colour and the much darker colour of the salt water.

Walrus in Svalbard

Back on board the Aleksey Maryshev, it was good to thaw out after a cold morning in the zodiac, although it seemed impossible to get the smell of the bird colony out of my nostrils (not that this put me off my lunch).Ìý We steamed north around Kapp (Cape) Fanshawe and into Lomfjord where the sun came out and we had good views of a lone walrus before anchoring in some truly spectacular scenery, with a glacier ahead of us and mountains rising on both sides.

It was very windy for our afternoon landing at Faksevagen, with dust blowing out of the valley across the front of the glacier looking rather like mist rising from the water, but the view was well worth the trek across the tundra, where there were several species of flowering plants and a single puffball, one of the 250 species of fungi found in Svalbard.

Highlight of the afternoon, however, was an Arctic fox exploring the seashore – with brent geese and pink-footed geese keeping a respectful distance – followed by a 'blue' fox scurrying up the scree slope.Ìý This is a very rare colour variant, which unlike most Arctic foxes, which moult into a white winter coat, retains a more uniform dark coat all year.

Faksevagen

We also saw eiders, Arctic skuas and snow buntings, as well as a single ivory gull, before it was time to return to the Aleksey Maryshev.

Back on board, instead of a conventional dinner a barbecue was staged on deck.Ìý Somehow, standing around at a barbecue wrapped-up against the cold seemed a peculiarly British thing to be doing, although the scenery brought home the reality of where we were.