2012 Arctic Cruise

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The Oseberg ship. See Wikipedia's page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseberg_ship for details. Parts of this ship date to 800 A.D.!

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When we arrived in Oslo we discovered that the Norwegian Air Force's 100th anniversary celebration would happen that weekend. As we visited a few of the city's museums on Friday we observed a number of practice runs for Saturday's air show. To photograph the air show we chose a location near the Fram Museum, southwest across the bay from the downtown area. This photo shows the French precision flying team, the Patrouille Acrobatique de France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrouille_de_France). The team flies Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault-Breguet/Dornier_Alpha_Jet).

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The air show featured aircraft dating from 1910 (a flying Bleriot) to F-16s and a full size model of the brand new F-35.

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On Monday, September 2, we flew from Oslo to Longyearbyen, the largest city on the island of Spitzbergen. Spitzbergen is the largest of a group of islands North of the Norwegian mainland that is known collectively as Svalbard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard).

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During our cruise we encountered polar bears on four different occasions. Our first encounter happened on an island off the northern coast of Spitsbergen (about 79.9925 14.436833), and involved a mother and her cub. The mother bear ate something she found under the rocks. The cub, obviously learning from mom, also looked underneath rocks.

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The cub surprised us by rolling around on the tundra like a happy puppy!

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This group of walrus seemed curious. They watched us photograph them for several minutes before they resumed feeding. These animals were several miles northeast of the polar bears, just a bit north of the northern tip of Spitzbergen.

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A pair of juvenile black-legged Kittiwakes flying among the icebergs in Liefdefjord near Monaco Glacier.

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One of the expedition staff located this polar bear from a couple of miles away, quite a feat considering the bear's light coat against the white of the iceberg. For this photo I mounted a 2x converter on my 70-200mm lens, but the focal length for this shot was only 150mm. As you can tell the ship was so close that I was looking down on the animal!

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While we watched, the bear moved around the icebergs. We believe he wanted one of us to visit!

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In this photo you see the seal blood on the ice! During the entire encounter's 55 minutes I never heard the bear make a noise of any kind. While this photo seems to capture a growl, the animal was actually yawning!

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As we pulled away from the bear's location I took this photo to show the pack ice the bear from which the bear hunted. Again the 70-200mm + the 2x converter zoomed to the 140mm minimum focal length.

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The ship's wake at sunset. The photo's timestamp says I pressed the shutter release at 10:10:06 p.m. UTC.

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We named this iceberg "Batman"! The captain sailed the ship deep into Rødefjord, one of the fjord's that branches off Scoresby Sund, Greenland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoresby_Sund). Scoresby Sund is the largest and longest fjord complex in the world.

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This is a view through the window of the iceberg near the fjord wall of Rødefjord, Greenland.

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Backlit detail of an iceberg in Rodefjord, Greenland.

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Sunrise in Nordvestfjord, Greenland.

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The ring around the sun is called a "sun dog" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog). We were in Nordvestfjord, another branch of the Scoresby Sund fjord complex.

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A rock embedded in an iceberg in Nordvestfjord, Greenland.

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For a portion of our crossing from Greenland to Iceland the waves rocked the ship to the point that some passengers became uncomfortable. The decks became slick with rain and snow, and for safety reasons we remained inside. When the sea calmed down this Northern Fulmar and his brethren repeatedly skimmed the waves, apparently utilizing the ground effect to save energy while hunting. I captured this image from our cabin's window using the 70-200mm zoom + the 2x converter to achieve the 400mm focal length needed to see the bird at a reasonable size in the image.

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Our bus driver and guide is standing on the roof of a home at Gerðisbraut 10, destroyed by the January the 23, 1973, eruption of the Eldfell volcano. The panel in the lower right corner of the photo covers a window! This site, Eldheimar (“Fire World”), will come a museum about the eruption event.

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Typical of homes in Heimaey, this one displays its name and construction date. The corrugated siding panels seem quite common not only in Heimaey but in other parts of Iceland.