Polar Bears, not just one but two

What a wonderful day.  After seeing their tracks along the shoreline at our last landing yesterday, our plan was to sail north to the sea-ice and travel along the edge of this, looking for elusive Polar bears.

At around 5:30am I felt the ship slow.  Outside it was grey clouds and ocean as far as I could see on the starboard (right) side.  Perhaps the sea-ice was on the other/port side of the ship.  An hour later I took the long route to the Bridge, and there it was, 9/10ths sea-ice stretching towards the horizon.  This means that it was broken into large and small pans of ice, joined with slushy areas.

There was lots of discussion over breakfast as to whether this type of ice was something that Polar bears would walk on – they are very sure-footed, and the consensus from the crew and our Polar bear expert, BJ, was that there was a good chance.

The morning stretched on, people meandering about the ship, looking towards the horizon as we sailed slowly north east.  We were now above 81°N and the air temperature was around 0°C with the breeze from the ship dropping ensuring that the windchill was much lower. 

Small groups of Guillemots were sitting on the water near the ice, while Kittiwakes flew by.  There was an apparent sighting of a whale, type not verified, but no-one could see a Polar bear on the ice.  The ice is rough, with small and large chunks of ice trapped across the surface.  A bear might well be asleep on the ice behind one of these bergy bits and be out of our sight. 

At noon I went back up to the Bridge, dressed more warmly than before, and with my camera & long telephoto in tow.  Crew were on each of the fly bridges using spotting scopes.  After about 15 minutes, one of the crew quietly said “I think I might have something over there,” pointing at 10 o’clock from the ship.  BJ turned to check and thought it looked good.  Annie, with her amazing eyesight was called, and confirmed that this was indeed a Polar bear asleep on the ice. 

The next step was to inform the Captain, and soon he was on the Bridge, slowing us down and discussing the next steps with Woodie.  Meanwhile I was still trying to find this speck of a bear – it was a long, long way away.

During this time, the call came for lunch at 12:30pm, and most passengers went to the Dining Room.  A short while later Woodie announced that we’d spotted a bear, and suddenly there were people everywhere: “where is it?” “can you see it?” “how far away is it?”  With Annie’s help I could see it with binoculars.  And then I noticed that we were turning into the ice, and driving quietly towards the bear.

He was indeed beautiful and was fast asleep on the ice.  We moved so slowly, gradually getting closer and closer until we stopped maybe 200m from him.  Suddenly he sat up, looked at us, stood up and charged!  He might have run 50m, not much more, then stopped and looked at us before lying down and going back to sleep.

Over the next hour or so he slept, woke, sat up, checked us out, did some grooming and then slept again.  He was either conserving energy or sleeping off a recent meal.  Each time he sat up and moved, shutters clicked by the hundreds &nda sh; many, many photos were taken. 

At around 2:30pm, he sat up once more, stood with his back to us, peed, and then wandered away.  By then we were all freezing, and relieved the we could go inside, warm up our hands and have some delicious hot soup.  It was nice to know that we hadn’t spooked this beautiful animal and that he left of his own accord.

Now it was time to check the photos I’d down-loaded before lunch.  I was only a short way into the 310 I’d taken of this Polar bear, when Annie announced that another had been spotted way off in the distance, but walking towards the ship.

Ok! This is great!  I added another layer under my hat, donned my yellow Quark jacket and went up to the Bridge level – other levels were already too crowded.

This was such a different bear.  He was on the move – walking towards us, moving easily from one piece of pan-ice to the next, almost striding along.  Again the Captain drove the ship into the ice a short distance.

The bear was walking towards the port side – we all moved over there, shutters clicking each time he walked or jumped across the ice.  And he just kept coming, clearly curious to understand what this large blue and white object is, stuck in the ice.  He came right up to the ship, to the hull – so close that we lost sight of him where the hull angles in under the deck. 

I decided to go down 2 decks, hoping that he’d reappear on the port side.  And he did – wow! 

Suddenly everyone was descending into the space I was in.  I headed towards the stern deck – a crowd was gathering there too, but I managed to grab a spot against the rear rail.  And the bear just kept on moving, right across the ice at the back of the ship.  He clambered over chunky bits, stretching across others, rarely looking back. 

Soon all I could see was his backside – and since I have too many photos of the rear ends of animals, it was time to stop, grab some photos of his footprints in the softer patches of snow, and go inside to do the first scan of my photos.  So far all is looking good.

Tomorrow, we’ll repeat this whole process – perhaps we’ll see more bears, or even a whale. 

I’ll certainly let you know, and look forward to sharing some photos when I can!  For now it’s bedtime – 11pm and the sky is as bright as it was through the day.