Polar bear video

Here is a video Catherine took in Spitsbergen of a Polar Bear eating a seal on an ice pack in the bright high sunshine at midnight.



http://youtu.be/Dc8AvZtAijY

Polar bear

Our cabin

Leaving Tromso

Fjord meadow

Whalebone

At Kapp Lee

A hanging garden

Fueled by guano.
A word about our daily outings. We go out on the zodiacs twice a day. Today we cruised around the fjord and in the afternoon we hiked for almost 3 hours. The boat travels at night, now we are cruising through a fjord with 7 glaciers. They are named glacier 1, glacier 2 etc.

Wild flowers

Arctic snowdrops

Ship, zodiacs and seal.

Breen

Norwegian for glacier

Zodiac departing

Ship with zodiacs

Fully loaded zodiac

Whaleboat and whale bones

Last landing

As we left this beach in the fog, there was a rainbow over the fjord.

Our leaders

Left to right, trip leader Christian, Swiss; Naturalists, John, Aussie, and Eirik, Norwegian. In our group: four from Singapore, two from South Africa, one Dutch, three Germans, two from Hong Kong, 6 Americans and the rest Aussie.

Samarinbreen

Bird cliff

At Gnalodden.

Trappers' cabins

On Edgeoya Island.

Reindeer

On Edgeoya meadow. They were very interested in us and came quite close. Then they smelled us and took off trotting.

View from cliff

At Kapp Lee.

Verdant tundra

Whale vertebrae

On Dolerittneset

Arctic buttercups

Landing for 9.5 k walk

Walruses

Bergy bit

Kittiwakes

On bergy bits.

Pack ice

Fully outfitted

For zodiac cruise.

Dressed for success

-ful Arctic expedition.

Pack ice

We travelled to 81 deg. 11 minutes north,looking for polar bears. Our ship plowed through 3 foot deep pack ice. Last evening we saw a hollow of 60 to 100 walruses. They are ungainly on the land, but frolic in the sea. Still looking for polar bear.

Whiskered seal

On ice bergy bits.

Ice

Walrus, bearded and harp seals, Northern Fulmar, king and common eider, pink-footed and barnacle goose, long tailed duck, red throated diver. But no polar bear, yet.
Lots of ice.
For the last two days we have taken cruises in the zodiacs in the morning and gone for walks in the afternoon. Today we plowed through the pack ice in our ice-hardened ship.
The weather is beautiful, sunny, little wind and temperature, 4-7 deg. C.
The food has been excellent .

Moraine

Or sediment picked up by the glacier and left as it melted.
Note the sunshine. We have had glorious weather, which is unusual.

Wildflowers

Our bird guide and guard

He carries a gun in case we get attacked by a polar bear.

Lilliehook Fjord

Lilliehookbreen

Lilliehook glacier

On our way

Our first view of seals

Dog sleds

Going off line

On our way to Longyearbyen.  Tara, Eve, Sara and Rebecca will have updates.

School house

In the Norsk Folkemusem.

Another one

These houses look over the Oslo Fjord.

Stave church

At the folkemuseum. From Gol, Hallingdal. Build 1200 ad.

Cute house

On Bygdoy Peninsula.

Another view

Renzo Piano museum

From the ferry

Kjosfossen Falls

The train from Flam to Myrdal stopped and let us off to view these falls. (Catherine almost missed them, but got off when she saw a picture on the train guide.). While we were admiring the view, music started and a fetching blonde Norwegian woman darted around, dancing.

Hanseatic League

In the mid 14th century, German merchants, the Hanseatic League, established Bergen as one of its 4major trading stations, the other 3 being London, Bruges in Belgium, and Novgorod in Russia. They traded dried cod and cod oil for grains from the Baltic countries and fine goods from England and Belgium. The small building to the right is one of the tenement buildings occupied by the merchants. They were all male and all German. Boys were apprenticed at the age of 14 for 5 years. If they succeeded, they moved up the ranks until they could buy their own house, hire a manager to run it and move back to Germany to marry.