(from 21 August)
The trip to Liefde Fjord, overnight was lumpy and the boat rolled quite a bit. Good to be rugged up in one’s bunk, asleep. In the fjord was flat, but the weather had come in again: limited visibility, some rain. We had a nice quiet breakfast, and then the crew up-anchored and cruised, looking from creatures from the bridge.
Below, in the saloon, we had a presentation from our photographer lead, Nick Cobbing, about how he came to publish a photo story in National Geographic. His journalistic history, and how he came to be noticed and in a position to know the right people to be able to pitch an idea and be asked to accompany a scientific journey. Good and interesting work. Apparently the Nat Geo story is available on line: I’ll have to look it up when I have some network.
About half way through, Martin, the group lead, came down from the bridge and suggested that we should have a break to take some photos of the blue ice that was floating around in front of one of the glaciers that open into the fjord. It was indeed very blue, and very beautiful. Many pixels were set.
We’ve stopped again off “duck islands” (eider, in Norwegian) near-featureless flat brown islands with little apparent life, except for some moss (one assumes: slight greenish). The crew are looking for foxes and bears from the bridge, but I think that this is mostly a calm spot to stop for lunch. After lunch we’ll be moving west again, probably back in that remnant rolling sea. Possibility of whales, apparently.
No wales, as it turns out, but we did have an epic meeting with a land-based polar bear, who took us on an extensive chase from the zodiacs. He wasn’t running, just ambling, but making good pace, and continuously away from the Origo. We followed him from about 3PM to about 6:30PM, and hardly noticed the time, we were having such a good time. Eventually headed back to the boat after he settled down for a snooze (seemingly), rain was approaching, and it was time for dinner.
Good day.
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