91Èȱ¬

Heading southwest from Kvitoya the weather conditions were absolutely sublime: brilliant sunshine, a completely cloudless sky and virtually no wind as we made our way through the sea-ice off the southeast of Nordaustlandet.

As the temperature rose to 8 degrees celsius, small pieces of ice that had formed on the ship's superstructure during the foggy early hours broke away and clattered onto the deck.

Our first polar bear of the day was swimming in the mirror-calm water and we also saw several ringed seals, although none very close.Ìý Later, we saw a female polar bear with one cub, a lone bear on the ice and then, what would be our last polar bears of the trip, another female with a cub on the ice.

There were plenty of birds around and we also had our best view of a bearded seal as a single animal, hauled out on the ice, passed down the port side of the ship. We passed through Freemansundet, between the islands of Barentsoya and Edgeoya, cleared the sea ice and into open water.

Two-pronged approach to walruses

After lunch we landed at Dolerittneset, on the northwest coast of Edgeoya, where about 30 male walruses were hauled-out on the beach.Ìý There are very strict rules about how many people are allowed to approach walruses in this situation and about how close they can approach, so we split into two groups.

Ours was the first to approach the walruses and it was interesting to see that those that were resting were doing so lying on their backs.ÌýOthers were more alert and two were in the shallow water just off the beach.

One of these animals was scratching himself by rubbing against a huge piece of ice, but the other seemed quite curious about us and swam along the beach to take a closer look.Ìý Walruses look very dark in the water, but on land, in the sunshine, they turn a fetching shade of orange-pink.

The Amazing Spider-plant

There was a pair of Arctic skuas with two young in the nest on the tundra behind the beach and we also saw a pair of snow buntings and two more reindeer.

After half an hour or so we swapped places with the other group and had a chance to explore the tundra and the shore pools, where we saw about a dozen purple sandpipers and a variety of flowering plants including a rare species of saxifrage called the spider plant, which has brilliant yellow flowers and bright red stems.

Little auks, Svalbard

Back on board we steamed southwest, towards the southern tip of Spitsbergen, in brilliant sunshine on a mirror-calm sea and watched groups of little auks and Brunnich's guillemots flying by, low over the water, their almost perfect reflections making it look as though there were always twice as many birds as there actually were.

Later on in the evening we saw a female fin whale with her calf.Ìý The fin whale is the second largest of all whales but does look superficially like the much smaller minke whale as they share a similarly shaped dorsal fin.Ìý The fin whale, however, can be identified by the shape and height of its spout, i.e. the column of spray it expels from its blowhole.

Only one more day to look forward to.....