Glacier calvings, bird cliffs & BBQ
PolarQuest’s guides are blogging from Sea Endurance. Below you can read an excerpt from the expedition on board Sea Endurance, 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.
Destinations
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Since 1999, we have taken travellers on once-in-a-lifetime trips to Svalbard. From May to September our three small expedition ships, carrying only 12 and 50 passengers, explore this magnificent Arctic archipelago. Unpredictability and flexibility are the main keywords when you travel with PolarQuest as the exact route depends on weather, ice conditions and wildlife encounters. Sometimes you might be woken up in the middle of the night if a polar bear has been spotted on the ice.