Thursday Aug 17, 2023
Hi Gang! We’re back to being expeditioners (is that even a word?)! We did two expeditions today. The first one was a landing on Poolepynten. It is a headland on the eastern coast of the Prins Karis Forland at Spitsbergen, Svalbard. It is located within the strait of Forlandsundet. The headland is named after British whaler Jonas Poole. It has a length of about 1.5 kilometers. Poolepynten lies within the Forlandet National Park.
The second location where we did a Zodiac boat ride is called St Jons fjorden which is a fjord in Oscar II Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard. It has a length of 21 km and opens westward into the strait of Forlandsundet. Several glaciers empty into the fjord including Gaffelbreen and Konowbreen.
On the first expedition we saw a “sister ship” of Atlas sending people over so we had to wait for them to finish since you can only have 100 people on land at any time. Once we got on land they showed us some fresh polar bear tracks (but darn, no polar bear!). We also saw a group of walrus laying on the beach. They don’t move a whole lot but it was really cool seeing them in their natural habitat. On the way back to the ship we saw the captain fishing for Atlantic Cod! I included a picture of him reeling a big one in. He caught so much they served it at dinner and it was so tasty!
On the second expedition we rode the zodiac up close to the glacier. We saw lots of large chunks of icebergs floating around and several had birds resting on them. We were hoping to see some seals but they were nowhere to be found. We saw (and heard) some of the glacier calving (breaking off and falling in the water) but I couldn’t snap a photo in time. The pictures don’t do it justice but the surroundings were just breathtaking!
In the evening we went to the expedition briefing where they discussed where we’d be going tomorrow. We then attended the captain’s farewell reception and then had dinner. Along with the fresh captain caught cod, they had lobster! Thank goodness since I’d been having withdrawals since our last cruise! Lol. It was Carol and Dan’s 34th wedding anniversary so they brought them a cake and sang to them. So sweet!
After dinner we went to the crew talent show. We saw lots of the folks that we know perform and share their talents. Kozmo the bartender from the Observation Lounge who shared his polar bear pictures with us had a great voice!
We went to bed early to prepare for our last big expedition day tomorrow! Hope everyone is well!
The Wandering Italian 