Walruses day 11

A later start with breakfast at 8. We joined Mark and Karen from Melbourne. Then it was time for a zodiac cruise around Bjornfjoren to look at the glaciers. There was a swell getting into the zodiacs which I didn’t like as one second it was a foot below the platform then at it. People are very into Arctic terns (we see them a lot especially on the Farnes) so we spent ages looking at them before going over to the glacier which we saw calf. We were in the same zodiac as Lisa plus the English mother and daughter. The mother likes to be at the front to get a good view. We always seem to be in the middle but Norwegian Kristen did a good job of moving the zodiac around to try to let us all see the views. It was very atmospheric as cloud was swirling around the mountain tops.

It was fortuitous that our group, Orange, was first to go out in the afternoon to Smeeremberg to see the walruses on a beach spit. Lucky because it was sunny and the sea and sky were bright blue which gave good photo light. We had to walk in a long line to about 30m from the cuddle-huddle of walruses. We had to be very quiet and luckily the wind was blowing our scent away from them. A couple flopped over to the water and swam about. Some had long tusks indicating they were older and male. The females have shorter ones. It was 5 minutes to walk to them then we had 15 or 20 to watch, then 5 back where Ian the historian told us about the 17th century whalers and we saw the structures they’d had to place the copper pots on to cook up the blubber. The zodiac ride was fast and choppy so we had to bunch to the back to minimise splashing.

We sat with Lisa and John (he had to escape from Vern who has Covid) in the lounge with our coffee and tried to delete photos but it was hard to decide.

After the briefing it was out the back (I should say aft!) for a BBQ. We were now back at the head of the fjord where we’d been in the morning. The light on the mountains and glaciers was lovely. Unfortunately we were directed to sit with the “we are not racists but” Aussie couple which was a struggle. We’ve heard 3 times they are going on a cruise from Los Angeles through the Panama Canal to some other US city. The crew came on dancing and one had a tray of candles on his head. After applauding that we got our cheese and wine and went inside to get warmed up. (And to escape!)