Arctic Adventures - Day 10

Reindeer

Our last full day on the ship and quite a poignant day.   The weather seems to know that the expedition is almost at an end and is completely different to last night with wind, grey cloud, rain and a swell.

Our first potential landing side for little auks was scuppered by a mother a cub polar bear, so we retraced our journey back out of the fjord to another site.   Unfortunately there was a sleeping male at our second potential site and so we then moved on to plan E or F regarding little auk colonies, and were told to stand by for further news and instructions.   Heading out into open water another polar bear was spotted swimming away from us, this was a fat male and by far the heaviest of all the bears we have seen so far.

Our last walk

A new plan is formulated, and we are called to the conference suite for instructions.   We are moving to another site and have given up on little auk for today -  we aim to anchor just after lunch, (ice, weather and polar bears permitting of course!).   Whilst we travelled, the reality of the end of the trip is heralded by the paying of our ship bills.   A walrus made a brief appearance on a distant ice floe and whilst we watched that another was sighted in front of the ship, it stayed whilst we silenty snuck up on it and endless photographs were taken.   Two other more distant walrus were seen but they remained far away.

Svalbard Poppy

Lunch was fish and chips and at around 2.30 pm we dropped anchor and the zodiacs were launched for the last time so that we could walk on the tundra plains looking for geese.   We spotted lots of barnacle geese with 1 canada goose present, long-tailed duck and pink-footed geese.  As we watched a snow goose was seen with a group of distant barnacle.   As we stalked it reindeed grazed and I spotted another arctic fox running ahead (perhaps I should move from birds to mammals?!) of us carrying a gosling. 

Many flowers were seen today and we played catch up with lots of previously missed species.   Eventually, after traipsing across tundra bog and over polygon moraines, we returned to the ship around 6.45 pm.    The captain's farewell was set for 7 so a quick shower and off to the restaurant for everyone to thank each other for a successful trip.

The land of the Arctic Fox

Charlie (a crew member) had broken his hand early in our trip and sang a farewell to his colleagues "leaving on a jet plane" accompanied by another crew member on guitar.    Rinie, the Captain and the Hotel manager all made speeches in thanks for all staff and crew, not to mention the passengers for a great trip.  All quite emotional.

Tomorrow's plan is to leave the ship for the last time around 8.30 am, and to head for a little auk colony near Longyearbyen before we have to leave for the airport.