3rd – And so it begins

I woke up at 0330 realising we were rolling quite a bit and that some sliding noise in the cabin had woken me up. A bit of more sliding was followed by a loud bump. I noticed it was my cabin mate’s stuff that had slid off the bed table and fallen onto the floor until I realised that I could still hear my water bottle continue shifting back and forth on our table. After securing it I also noticed that my bottle of “welcome back”-wine had slid from one end to the other on the table, so that got secured too before I returned to bed.

Wake-up call at 0730 and the morning was spent on breakfast and going through the mandatory safety-, security- and behaviour briefings, relaxation, looking for stuff outside and having lunch. Shortly after lunch our photographer held a short lecture on basic principles and techniques of photography, promising a more advanced one later on.

At this point we had arrived at Magdelenefjorden where we in the afternoon went out in the zodiacs and went onto land where we had a walk around. At one point an arctic fox walked up completely ignoring people only a few meters away. They are obviously used to these large numbers of people arriving not being a threat, and soon after it trotted away again. An hour later and change we got back into the zodiacs and went for a small cruise bringing us past a glacier and 3 large walruses relaxing on the beach.

Three walruses.

Returning to the ship we got refreshments while the ship lifted anchor, left the location and continued north, later rounding the northern point and down through Hinlopenstretet (Hinlopen strait) to Bråsvellbreen (Bråsvell glacier) which we will reach for tomorrow morning. The debriefing before dinner was a bit of talk about today, current plans for tomorrow and the captain introducing himself and the other officers. This was followed by dinner, relaxation and live music in the bar.

All morning the weather was grey and overcast not being very promising, but arriving at Magdelenefjorden everything loosened up and the weather improved greatly. The timing could not have been better. When starting our route north the clouds and drizzles returned and the crew is expecting wind and swell being much calmer here and at the destination than it was last night. Last night’s conditions hadn’t been forecast or expected at all, so let’s see how safe tonight’s prediction is.