Visited by a polar bear

Just a quick post to described the end to an amazing day. We arrived in Skaare Fjord this morning – gentle winds, early morning sun reflecting off the snow on mountains on one side of the Fjord. A beautiful place.

Then the wind came up, making the zodiac ride rather unpleasant – I opted to stay in and catch up with photo post-processing and nice conversations with others in the lounge.

Most days we have a briefing at 6:45pm that covers the likely plans for the following day – and on this leg of our Arctic journey, each of the artists from Chris Hadfield’s Generator group, has shown us some of their work, and described what they are trying to achieve while they’re here. They are amazing artists doing interesting and exciting work.

Cheli, our expedition leader, covers the next day’s overview – but tonight she took the microphone and said something along the lines of “our team on the bridge has spotted a polar bear on an ice floe near the ship.” She quickly added “it is still a long way away, and dinner will be delayed” – otherwise she would have been trampled in the rush!

As soon as the briefing was finished, we were back in our cabins, grabbing jackets, hats, gloves & cameras (this time with card!). On the bow one of the crew pointed towards a small cream speck in the distance – yep a beautiful polar bear, but really a long way from us.

We watched, took many photos, magnified them so that we could see what it was doing, and gradually the ship moved around the ice floe, trying not to disturb it.

I was due to be with a group celebrating a passenger’s 60th birthday – it was a surprise party, and Kevin, the birthday boy, was blown away by this wonderful surprise. He and his wife Patricia are a delightful Canadian couple that I’ve come to know. Patricia invited 12 of us, including two of the expedition crew, Chris Hadfield, a couple from NZ, and an Australian couple. We use 3 different dining rooms on the KK all with open seating – tonight we were in the starboard room with many others.

As we were eating main course, Dutch, one of the crew at our table received a message from the Bridge. He stopped the whole dining room to say that the polar bear was now 100 meters from the ship. Now this created a dilemma – can we really get up and leave the table? It was finally agreed that it was absolutely ok – and I went back up to my cabin, grabbed jacket, outside boots, hat, gloves & camera with card, and headed out to the bow. Amazing – absolutely amazing! It was so curious, watching cautiously from a short distance, then coming closer and closer to the ship. It could see us, and no doubt could hear the shutters clicking.

We were right up against the ice floe, and as it started to come close, a part of the sea-ice cracked with a bang – the polar bear moved back closer to the edge of the water.

And so it was time to go back to dinner – champagne, birthday cake and then a song from Chris, written by Kevin all about the KK (Patricia quietly got it off his computer so that Chris could practise ahead). What a great evening!

Now it’s after 11pm here – we are heading south and expecting to hit some ice at around 2am. Crew are now on watch on the bridge – if there is another polar bear sighting, we’ll be woken. My camera is ready – clothes are all laid out. Maybe we’ll see one at 3am after all!