Sunday 5 August 2012

Is Bellsund a polar bear home???

Our first landing of the day was in Ingebrigtsenbukta or also known as Bamsebu. In the 1930s it was the scene of Beluga whales hunt. Hundreds of them were caught on fishing nets, drag ashore and slaughter for their blubber and skin. It was not only about the history that we learned today as we had the first surprise of the day. When some of us were already ashore a polar bear appeared on the horizon about 1 km away from the landing site. The bear proceeded moving towards the landing site, the expedition staff evacuated all passengers and landing was put on hold on. We were able to watch from the vessel outside decks, as how the polar bear moved by the site where we were just few minutes ago. The beast continued along the shore and when he was more than 1.5 km away we started with the landing all over again.
After lunch we were in Recherchefjorden, and the objective was to see the glacier terminus/snout. However, the landing was also interrupted but not by one but two polar bears. Even that we have to break the landing we still had very good opportunity to watch them from outside decks. Our cruise started two days ago and until now we have seen four polar bears – not a bad start and to be continued.............