The night was pretty smooth as we made our way east and then south to Stroya. This is a small island where walruses are often seen.
The expedition team went to scout out the island but saw no walruses, nor polar bears and with a temperature of -4C , the decision was made for no zodiac cruise. A landing was not possible as there was sea ice collected around the landing area. This drove the decision to continue south west then. We came across some pack ice and got an announcement that there is a mother and 2 cubs on the ice ahead of the ship.
The cubs were at first cuddled up to mom, then mom got up and they started moving around , even hopping between some ice and then actually swam off to another far off ice patch . We watched until you couldn’t see them well with the naked eye anymore. They were very cute and we hadn’t see the bears swimming before.
Lunch was scheduled after this excitement, followed by a late zodiac cruise. Here we saw a huge variety of birds in a bit of a feeding frenzy. There were eider ducks, guillamonts, kittiwakes and Arctic terns bomb diving.
Further around the corner I noticed a lone polar bear on the ridge of the mountain that ran along the side of the island. It posed nicely ,walked further along the ridge then disappeared down the other side. Howard tried to go around the other side but we got a radio call that the bear was back on the ridge and turned back. It walked around some more, then plonked down and stayed in place.
We watched the bear for a little while longer then headed down to check out some of the sculpted icebergs, and then finally, cause we were with Howard- expedition leader- we quickly went to check out the ice shelf .
It was very expansive, 116km across its width and approx. 30m high.
