18th - Polar plunging

Wake up and breakfast as usual. Soon after we were off at 14^th of July Bay and Glacier; we did some bird watching from the zodiacs for a while before we went on land and had an hour and a bit to walk around by ourselves and look at flora and birds. It was nice for once to be on land and being able to choose your own pace and walk around by yourself.

Reindeers.

Puffins.

Arctic fox.

Snow bunting.

Moss campion. Taking full advantage of the sun it flowers first on the south side and slowly works it way across its hemispherical shape and flowers on the north side in the end. Also called the compass plant.

In the afternoon we relocated to Ny London in Kongsfjorden nearby with similar plan(s). It has previous been a mining industry for marble (it ended when people realized the low quality of the marble) and apart from bird watching we had the opportunity to look at the geology and marble patterns. On land we had a tour of the historical sites before given the opportunity to go into the water from the beach. I was part of the last group landing (did another photographic cruise) and were therefore only given a very short version of the tour (which I didn’t mind at all) but in spite of this we still got delayed and didn’t make it back to the beach in time to see people jumping in. I had not made up my mind yet whether to do it or not – but had dressed for the occasion if I ended up going for it – but coming back to the beach after all the action I ended up not going. Would I have done it if I had been able to do it together with everyone else? Bravery in numbers? I want to say yes but I honestly don’t know. In the end around 20 people ended up jumping in.

A nesting long-tailed skua.

Late on the ship, around 2330, a whale was spotted on the horizon. The only reason it was seen was because we could see it blow. Due to the distance it was impossible to identify it.