To the Arctic, Part 3. A glacier and its offspring

Here’s what we saw on the second full day of our trip to the Arctic: a Zodiac cruise in St. Jonsfjorden in Svalbard.  This is what the daily itinerary said:

St. Jonsfjorden is a fjord in Oscar II Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard. It has a length of 21 kilometer and opens westwards into the strait of Forlandsundet. This is a site with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and glaciers, and the glacier Gaffelbreen (“Fork glacier”) in a bay just around the corner, interesting tundra with lots of plant species, reindeer and frost-patterned ground can been seen – a lovely little piece of Spitsbergen.

To remind you again, most of our cruising and landing was on the island of Spitzbergen, the largest island in the archipelago known as Svalbard (the whole archipelago was formerly called “Spitzbergen”).  The general location is shown below, with Svalbard in dark green (we were cruising around and landing on the largest island).  We are above the Arctic Circle, which is at 66.5° north latitude, while the archipelago extends from 74° to 81°.

Here’s a finer-scale map; the small fjord with the red dot is St. Jonsfjorden, and the site has other photos (these are mine).  Gjertsenodden is “a small lowland area on the north side”

First we inspected the Fork Glacier in a Zodiac (inflatable rubber boat). We had a whole hour of cruising, which is a long time in a Zodiac.  First we inspected the glacier face, but couldn’t get too close because it calves off icebergs and can create waves that might overwhelm the boats.

The view from my cabin window as we entered the fjord, with a small glacier visible. Click all photos to enlarge them (recommended):

First, breakfast:

Coming around the corner; you can see the big glacier debouching from the mountain:

A panorama of the Fork Glacier taken from the front of the ship. Click to enlarge!

Two views of the glacier face taken from the ship.

The dark streaks are dirt in the ice that it’s picked up as it moves toward the sea:

Below: the Zodiacs lined up waiting for passengers to climb in. Each one holds a driver and 8-10 passengers, and they can go FAST.  I kept my camera in a plastic bag to keep the seawater out.

We had one hour, a good long time to inspect the glacier and its offspring bergs. Here’s a view of the ship from our Zodiac, with the glacier face to the left:

A berg recently calved from the glacier:

. . . and one floating away:

Our guide leaned over the boat’s edge (not safe!) to pick up a piece of floating ice for us:

I’m holding a piece, and then I tasted it. It was good. Remember, this is frozen fresh water, not ice water. In the Antarctic, at one Ukrainian station they served vodka made with glacier water. Now that is a rarity! Sadly, we didn’t have such a libation in the Arctic.

We were told this was a bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) resting on a floe. Wikipedia says this:

It gets its generic name from two Greek words (eri and gnathos) that refer to its heavy jaw. The other part of its Linnaean name means bearded and refers to its most characteristic feature, the conspicuous and very abundant whiskers. When dry, these whiskers curl very elegantly,^[3] giving the bearded seal a “raffish” look.^{[citation needed].}

I love that “citation needed” for “raffish look”. More:

Bearded seals are the largest northern phocid. They have been found to weigh as much as 300 kg (660 lb) with the females being the largest. However, male and female bearded seals are not very dimorphic

Here’s a Wikipedia photo showing the raffish look. Pretty damn raffish, no? The one above isn’t so raffish. . .

After a hot shower, lunch followed in the Balena restaurant, where they prepared a stir-fry (highly Westernized, though I asked for mine Szechuan style):

And my first visit to the bridge (I went many times) as we left the fjord , showing the surroundings. That was all the day’s activities as we were steaming towards a new location for a landing. Walruses and even better icebergs!