Late last night near the end of our July 4th celebrations, looking behind the ship and more than 90 n.m, NW from Jan Mayen, we were still able to see the volcano Beerenberg (2,277m or 7,514ft high). Through the night we continued steaming towards the entrance to Franz Josef fjord, on the east coast of Greenland and about 170 n.m. north of Scoresby Sund, surrounded by endless of fulmars.
Throughout the early hours we steamed still with glorious light, midnight sun, and by the morning, before breakfast, we encountered more open drift ice by the shelf edge from Greenland. Instantly, harp seals and hooded seals were sighted, and we were able to see in the west the high and distant peaks on Greenland that were still more than 50 n.m. away. This gives you the magnitude of Greenland and its icecap.
As we slowly were approaching Greenland and the first icebergs started to mingle between the broken up pack-ice floes standing out with their size, including some huge Arctic tabular icebergs grounded on more shallow shoals. Captain took our ship closer to investigate one of these tabular icebergs that measured 1.8 n.m. long and 0.8 n.m. wide.
Finally, we arrived to our set goal, the island Bontekoe ø, and found dense sea ice set to limit our further approach deeper in. We saw fast ice deeper into the fjord, but the broken up pack-ice was tight and well packed between. In between the pressure ridges over the ice, we soon sighted our first Greenland polar bear, a large individual (likely to be a male). As the captain tried to push our ship slightly closer between some larger ice floes, a female with a couple of one and a half years old cubs appeared on our starboard side. Unfortunately, they were heading into the deep dense ice, so we returned to our first bear and it came closer to the edge, obviously in the mode to hunt the ringed seals we saw in the water between the ice floes. Slowly moving towards the island, another female with cubs came out onto some fast-ice at the same time as another large bear was sighted sleeping on top of a pressure ridge.
After this “polar bear fiesta” we had a scout boat to search for a potential landing site and soon positive reports came back and our Zodiacs were heading for the shore. Very few people have ever landed and walked on the island Bontekoe ø and the hikers were able to find flowers in full bloom, butterflies, ptarmigans, snow buntings and a skeleton with the mighty head of a muskox. Long hikers went far up and had a magical view over the area, with the high mountain peaks of Greenland to the west and in distance.
The culinary opportunities onboard over this spectacular day were different and both in the national flavours. We had a Swedish lunch with herring and meatballs…and a Filipino dinner with suckling pig, different salads, and kilawin (civiche).
To spend a day with sparkling sunshine, blue sky, and no wind sailing in-between large ice floes, sprinkled with larger icebergs and a landing on the coast of NE Greenland, north of the fjord system Scorseby Sund and well above N 70 degrees, is for sure something special. The sea ice and the fog is always something, which for hundreds of years made this coastline, the Liverpool coast, one of the most inaccessible in the world. The whalers came here from the early 1600s to 1820 and knew there was land to the west, but very rarely saw the coast. We reached it and landed.
