After yesterday’s - not most favorable weather - we woke up this morning with beautiful sun shining over the impressive 80-feet ice cliffs of Bråsvellbreen. Right after breakfast we headed out for zodiac cruises, trying to wrap our heads around the fact that we were actually standing in front of Austfonna: the world’s third largest ice cap, featuring a glacier front over 120 miles long.
The weather was literally perfect and a team of 8 zodiacs left the marina deck to explore stunning waterfalls shooting out of the ice front and impressive blue icebergs lying everywhere around the National Geographic Orion. We even had a hotel-zodiac welcoming us half way for hot chocolate serving! Our morning could not have been any better as everybody headed back to the ship awaiting for Chef Lothar’s lunch.
Right after lunch we had a lecture over Longyearbyen’s past and contemporary history from our naturalist – and previous Svalbard-resident – Kasper Jæger. We learned how just in the past months, the historical coal mining company “Store Norske” has been heavily downsizing from 400 to just over 100 employees, jeopardizing the stability of numerous families in Longyearbyen. How will the small northernmost community of the world react to these changes? Only time can tell.
Following on, Captain Martin held a fantastic 75-minute lecture over Ice-Navigation. We were taught about the challenges that sea ice, glacier ice, and mixed ice can represent for the safety of an expedition cruise. The Captain’s presentation, originally meant for officers only, provided us with fantastic insights over scenarios that normally were contemplated only behind the scenes. And all this came along with breath-taking pictures and first-hand experience stories from the two most remote and remarkable places on Earth: Arctic and Antarctic!
