It’s almost midnight and we are finally about to turn in for the night and it has been grueling! We have just returned from the bridge after being torn from our beds by Lucho, the expedition leader, who called out on the ship’s intercom system, “Narwhals!” The bridge was packed with our fellow expeditioners wearing their robes and pajamas, binoculars and cameras in hand. There were at least two or three groups of narwhal moving fast, porpoising through the water under the midnight sun. Straight ahead a group of males with their tusks jutting forward were the icing on the cake of a wonderful day in Svalbard.
Good morning, good morning came the announcement at some early hour of the morning. We were stirred from our beds to prepare for a day that we could not know would be so spectacular and memorable. Mountains of fruit, bowls of porridge, and plates of eggs and bacon provided the fuel to energize us all.
Immediately after breakfast we donned our warmest clothes and stepped into a bright and sunny glacial landscape and were whisked away in Zodiacs. The large Monacobreen Glacier loomed from one side of this giant fjord system to the other. Today the glacial front has split into two as it has retreated over two miles in the last decade alone.
Zodiacs are the perfect platform for exploring this Arctic glacial landscape. As we leave the ship we travelled out into the fjord to circle a few icebergs that appear to be grounded. A quick call to the bridge reveals the depth here to be over 90 meters. Icebergs are generally seven times larger below than above and the topsides loom overhead like jagged five-story buildings made of ice.
Circling back towards the ship and the glacier we moved along the shoreline where a large lateral moraine marks the path of this retreating glacier. Piles of gravel and rocks line the side of the fjord leading us right up to the ice front. We stand back at a distance as large chucks of ice dislodge seemingly randomly from time-to-time.
The glacier is essentially a giant time machine recording the weather here on Spitsbergen over the decades, centuries, and millennia. Layer after layer of snow is gradually reduced to ice capturing tiny parts of the atmosphere in bubbles of gas that tell the story of our past climate. Scanning from top-to-bottom we try to imagine which layers correspond to the moments in history that mean the most to all of us.
Just to make a perfect morning even more perfect we encounter the ship’s crew wearing Viking helmets bobbing nearby in another Zodiac serving spiked hot chocolate. We toast to our adventures and work our way back to the ship to warm and refuel our bodies, ready for whatever the expedition leader has planned for us next.
The ship has been repositioned to a Devonian red iron-rich sandstone landscape. The crew efficiently shuttles everyone ashore and we feel as if we have just landed on Mars, despite the driftwood! Hike leaders break everyone into groups and we spread out across this bizarre Arctic Marscape. Working our way up a small hill, a large white ball sitting on a rock jumped out at us. The Svalbard ptarmigan, or the endemic snow chicken. In just a couple of weeks this landscape will be transformed into a rich vegetated landscape, but today only the Dryas octopelata is green filling the wet patches.
Invigorated by our hike and another dose of Arctic landscape, we jumped back into our Zodiacs for a short trip to the ship. Back underway, we melted into our chairs in the lounge and shared our picture, and memories of the day and enjoyed the staff Recap.
PS: Just as we pulled away from the narwhals, expecting to rush back to bed, another blue whale showed up off our bow, making for a long night… I mean day… I mean night… confused under the midnight sun.
