Glacier calvings, bird cliffs & BBQ

PolarQuest’s guides are blogging from M/S Quest. Below you can read an excerpt from the expedition on board M/S Quest, the 16th – 26th July 2015.

24th July 2015
We woke up to light winds and only slight overcast as we entered Krossfjord on our way to the beautiful Fourteen of July glacier. A light rain was falling as we entered our Zodiacs but soon the whole bay was bathing in sunshine. Brünnich’s guillemots, glaucous gulls with chicks and the charismatic puffins were nesting on the bird cliffs. A handful of reindeer were grassing on the lush tundra to the sound of the kittiwake colony above. The silence in the Zodiacs while cruising the glacier front was only disturbed by the cracking of ice, but suddenly we witnessed a massive calving – what a powerful experience!

In the afternoon we had sailed deep into Kongsfjorden and its mighty glacier. In the footstep of Ossain Sars, a Norwegian researcher, most of us went up the hill and could enjoy a fantastic view of the kittiwake colony nesting high up the mountain. The view of the fjord, the pointed mountains and the glacier fronts was just stunning. We all got amazingly close encounters with reindeer, something we all had hoped for. As if that wasn’t enough the day ended with a barbeque out on deck in the evening sunlight.