Country Images Magazine North Edition November 2016 | Page 11

The excitement of boarding the sturdy bright red ship, the G-Expedition, our home for the next eight days was heightened by boat drill and the issue of our neoprene gum boots and arctic-wear parkas, a garment perfectly designed for use in high latitudes, but rather heavy duty for even the severest Peak District winter. With re-enforced bows capable of forcing its way through the ice pack, the G-Expedition left the questionable delights of Longyearbyen and sailed north, past Prinz Karls Forland in order to check ice conditions around eighty degrees north, beyond the furthest tip of Svalbard. When the Norwegian arctic explorer Nansen set his tiny ship, the Fram, into sea ice somewhere along the Siberian coast in an attempt to drift with the current across the North Pole, countercurrents took the Fram southwards until he could leave the ship, still stuck in ice, near Ny-Ålesund and continue overland to send a message that all was well. In recent years polar ice has still blocked the sea around northern Svalbard, but as we found later, it took a full day’s sailing north in open water before coming into contact with serious ice. All we saw was the occasional growler, mini icebergs floating by, carved into all manner of weird shapes. The land in this far north western corner of Svalbard is named after the Monacoan Prince Albert 1st and we turned into remote Liefdefjorden (‘Love Fjord’) to reach Monacobreen, a huge peak-surrounded glacier flowing steadily to the sea. Here we had our next excitement by boarding Zodiacs, rubber boats driven by powerful outboard motors. Getting in and out of them when the sea is bouncing up and down takes more than a bit of practice, but no one fell in – apparently life expectancy in arctic water is all of ninety seconds! Cruising along the foot of the glacier was not for the faint-hearted, especially when huge lumps of ice crashed down a matter of a few yards away, each one causing a mini tsunami. Masses of growlers, floating lumps of blue ice left over from the crashing fall became a slight hazard, but with a skilled pilot at the helm we got through. Whenever the ice fell off the end of the glacier, the point where it hit the sea became the focal point of hundreds of Black-legged Kittiwakes together with Glaucous Gulls wheeling and diving in a frenzy. Apparently they were feeding on the thousands of young cod attracted to plankton disturbed by the falling ice. In amongst the kittiwakes were fulmars, skuas and arctic tern building up their fat reserves before making the fantastic journey south to the Antarctic. The only mammal we saw was a grey seal sunning itself on an ice flow. Even though we remained on the Zodiacs, returning to the G-Expedition meant paddling through disin fectant, something we did on every trip away from the ship, an impressive reminder of the need to keep the pristine environment free of outside contamination. It was during our journey out of the fiord that we saw our first bear, a sow and her cub were moving steadily along the ice-free shore. There has been a lot of publicity about the plight of bears now that arctic ice is retreating further north each summer. The pair were too far away from us to see properly without binoculars, but both looked quite healthy and in fact the sow was reported to be almost fat. In the past, bears caught seals, their principal diet, by waiting next to a hole in the ice and catching a seal as it came up for air. With the retreating ice, seals can remain in open water and rest on ice flows, but ice bears, (polar bears), appear to have adapted their hunting skills by catching seals when they are at rest. Certainly the next bear we saw had succeeded in this method and appeared to be enjoying a siesta after a long lunch, leaving just a few morsels for a Glaucous Gull to chance its luck. This was our third day and it was soon after seeing the feeding bear that we were visited by our nosey interloper, and as we moved off a pod of at least three blue whales cruised slowly by, the spouting plume from their breath spraying high into the air. The largest of the Atlantic whales that were once so easy to catch that they almost died out. The breed is slowly restoring, but their numbers are still well below those at the height of the cruel whaling industry. DERBYSHIRE’S NO 1 INDEPENDENT LAND ROVER CENTRE DERBYSHIRE’S NO 1 INDEPENDENT LAND ROVER CENTRE Quality service without compromise. O MUCH FOR G TO ING? r ARE YOU PAYIN VER veSEhicRleVevIC O R D N en whilst unde OUR LA Y ur yo e can servic for your quality service Rover Servicing? DLS! Wemuch Are you paying . 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