Monday 25th June

Seafeverofcrinan
Mon 25 Jun 2018 08:21

Monday 25th June


We are having trouble with dates and days. It’s early Monday morning (0220) and we have just anchored twice in Engleskbutka (78:49 N 11:53E) in a rolly sea but with little wind. The boat is very squeaky but a silent crew mostly sleeping. I have just downloaded my photos of the day and am finally feeling warm. After 9 hours on watch in the last 24 (somehow I think we got the watches muddled at some time!) I am toasty warm and wanted to do something other than look at the awesome monochrome glaciers and mountains around us, so thought I’d write another blog for that large readership we have....or for myself maybe! On Sunday we sailed for 12 hours with an amazing tour of Pooleprynten where there is a walrus colony. We were surprised to see them swimming, remarkably graceful in the water, this was the highlight of the day. We sailed close to their haul out spot where we saw a huddle of them (all male, the females are much further East of Svalbard) sleeping and occasionally waving flippers in the air. They weigh about 1500 kg and are up to 3 m long so quite a sight both in the water and on land. The population on Svalbard is around 2000, they were hunted almost to extinction for 3 centuries and have only been protected for 50 years so it’s taking a while to increase the population and they are still on Svalbard’s red list. They have very particular ecological needs, limiting their distribution, requiring large areas of shallow water with lots of molluscs to eat, reliable open (ice free) water over rich feeding areas and low level ice pans or land where they can haul out. Poolepynten offers all these, and so there are reliable sightings of these remarkable creatures there. After plenty of observations we moved on as we had a date with a “gate”, Forlandsundet, a narrow band of shallow water through which the tide rips and which would require careful navigation. Before this we enjoyed Mary’s version of Mary B’s three bean curry, the quantities of which will enable an enchilada special tomorrow night! Sailing on past the impressive coastline of Prins Karls Forland, a large island lying offshore between Isfjorden and Kongsfjorden, we enjoyed continued impressive vistas of glaciers and mountains in monochrome with bands of horizontal cloud obscuring parts of the mountains, and adding to the other worldly experience. Anchoring at 0130, we are hoping to have a few hours rest here before moving further north, maybe to Ny Ålesund or Magdalenafjord. Weather is currently grey with light winds so there was very little sailing today, we had a patch of very cold rain (sleet/snow temperatures!) but otherwise weather was fairly indifferent.


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