The sun was shining, the water was calm and flat, the sky was bright blue - what a gorgeous morning!
As we savored our breakfasts we heard the announcement “a bear has been spotted!” And there he was - just in front of the ship. This young male bear appeared to be putting on a show - he was doing his morning stretches, playing around on the ice, rolling around on the snow drying his fur having taken a dip in the icy waters. Our first polar bear sight of the day had to be seen to be believed.
We continued to sail along the ice edge, followed by Harp seals popping up and down. No sooner had Captain Martin declared “the ice is perfect” we were starting to turn, heading straight for the ice. “Crashhh boommm”, and the bow strikes. “Bommm, crack crack…” the vibration went all the way to the stern and there they were: in the ice, sailing through ice! Everybody made their way to the bow, admiring the huge and perfectly white pieces of ice as they jostled amongst one another as the National Geographic Orion ploughed through. Sailing along the ide edge, surrounded by a perfect ice scenario at over 81̊N – we certainly had the feeling that we were on the top of the world!
The day continued to be perfect, how could we ever top this?! The call came again, one more polar bear, just having a nap and relaxing on the ice on this sunny day. Later on we had the privilege to encounter two bears together. The younger of the two was evidently conscious of his position, walking away from the bigger dominant one. Our seventh encounter brought us close to another bold bear who went in for a dive, walked along the ship and admired all of us from his ice vantage point – he appeared as curious of us as we were of him.
The feeling of today was simple: Overwhelming.
