In the evening, we sailed north to the little island of Moffin. Just north of the 80th parallel, this island hosts a large flock of walruses. Other collective noun for walruses are: herd, huddle, pod and ugly. An ugly of walruses. They can live for 30 years and weigh over 1.5 tonne. Large tusks make them formidable adversaries. They are predated by polar bears and orca but generally just the young or injured walruses. As is often the case in the Arctic, their biggest enemy is humans. Today there are around 5,000 walruses around Svalbard but in the previous two centuries they were nearly hunted into extinction. Blubber and ivory are the major products.
Commercial walrus harvesting is now outlawed, although Chukchi, Yupik and Inuit peoples are permitted to kill small numbers towards the end of each summer. I was thrilled to finally see some walrus. The Spitsbergen kept a good distance from the uglies. The word uglies here could refer to several groups of walruses or it might just hint at the ugliness of the walrus. They lack the cuteness of the polar bear or the sleekness of an orca. They dribble a lot and roll around in the muck. Distance and poor light made photography, even with the new camera, difficult. The sun never set the whole time we were up there. It did however dip towards the horizon in the evening.
Next morning we woke at Kinnvika, a former research station in the high Arctic landscape of Nordaustlandet. The station built during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957-59. This was also when the first base at Halley Bay, Antarctica was built. Halley base is still going strong. I worked there in 1988/9. Kinnvike sadly, has fallen into disrepair. There are still several huts scattered around. One of them I recognised as being built for auroral observations. A rusting amphibious vehicle is parked outside. This looked like it would have been great fun in its day. The base has been used a couple of times since IGY but essentially it is just a historical relic.
Leaving Kinnvike, we spotted a fin whale. Second largest cetacean after the blue whale. Up to 80 tonnes. Like other large whales the population was devastated in the post war whaling boom and they are still only very slowly recovering. A rare privilege to spot one.
It is a common misconception that most whales were killed during the romantic age of whaling. Wooden boats and heroic sailors of the 18th and 19th century. This sentimentalised view comes from the literature, art, and popular culture of the age. The exoticism of faraway voyages and the epic battles with giant whales held great popular appeal. The reality is that most whales were killed, after WW2, using explosive harpoons fired from fast motorboats. They were processed in massive factory ships that could handle hundreds of whales at a time. This was a valuable contribution to the post-war economy of many countries. Whaling finally abated when petroleum products became viable alternatives. At the same time, the whaling industry, with the steep decline of global whale populations, became uneconomic.
In the afternoon we reached the bird cliffs of Alkefjellet. From a distance these look like normal cliffs but as we got closer, in the RHIBs, we could see the birds. Thousands of them. Mostly Brünnich’s guillemots with a few other types to add colour. The air was full of birds, the cliffs were covered in nesting birds and the smell was, well, distinctive. Nesting, in this case, means perching on impossibly small ledges and using any lower perching birds as a toilet. The guillemots are also known as thick-billed murres. Their chicks have a harsh start in life. Once big enough, they jump off the cliff and try to make it to the water where a parent is waiting. The dilemma, as I saw it, is that if you nest lower down, the chick has an easier route to the water but you need to put up with all the birds higher up. The rocks, in places are completely white with bird guano. Nesting higher up means the chick bounces more on the way down and so has less chance of arriving intact. Sailing close to the cliffs we found it advisable to wear a hat. The birds took very little notice of us. Even so, we were careful not to get too close. Back on the ship we settled down for the evening while the captain set a course due north.
By the morning, we were considerably further north and surrounded by mist. Lunchtime the mist began to lift as we arrived at the ice edge. At just over 82°N this was the southern limit of the Arctic ice cap. The ice was mostly brash. Loose pieces of broken pack ice that stretched to the horizon. An ice ship could have ploughed straight into this but the Spitsbergen is not built for the rough stuff so we just pottered around the edge. Even so, this was a record, the farthest north ever reached by a ship in the HX fleet.
The north pole was just 550 miles away. We spent the rest of the at the ice edge. There were a few sea birds, mostly guillemots. A few seals. And a terrific view of ice. Ice everywhere.
