Osbornebreen and sei whales

I slept pretty well in our comfortable king size bed, waking just a couple of times in the night. I could feel the ship's movement, but it was a pleasant rocking rather than anything too violent! And I could see through the gap we'd left in the curtains that it stayed light all night and even sunny at times.

By the time we got up however, around 7.30, the weather had closed in, with low clouds in places and some rain. We had a good breakfast and were just finishing when the ship started to turn. An announcement came over the PA that beluga whales had been spotted so we hurried back to our cabin to get into our parkas and then up to the observation deck. There was a strong wind and some rain lashing down so not ideal for having cameras out. Also, the whales were at some distance so it was very hard to get a photo but I managed something!

Morning ship cruise: St. Jonsfjorden

After a while we started to progress further into the fjord, St. Jonsfjorden. We went back to our room for a bit, where we could hear the sound of icebergs scraping the ship from time to time! When we moored near the glacier, Osbornebreen, in Osbornebukta (Osborne Bay), we were able to get some great shots of the landscape from our balcony, and later from the observation deck.

There was a mandatory briefing midmorning to explain about the zodiac and shore landing excursions. The expedition leader Ryan was great at these briefings, combining a bit of humour with a lot of useful information. We were divided into four groups for zodiac boarding, so as not to crowd the mud room area. Chris and I were ‘Kittiwakes', scheduled to leave in the second group today.

Afternoon zodiac cruise in Osbornebukta

Osbornebukta is named after Sir William Osborne, a British explorer and philanthropist. Located in St. Jonsfjorden, the highlight of Osbornebukta (bukta = bay) is the stunning glacier of a similar name, Osbornebreen (breen = glacier).
From the Ocean Explorer’s daily programme

We had a light lunch in the smaller bistro on deck 8, overlooking the glacier. In the afternoon we had our first zodiac excursion, with our guide Nicola. She took us close to the glacier which excitingly calved several times! We also saw lots of small icebergs, some crystal clear and some rather dark, while others were deep blue.

In the clearer pieces we could easily see the bubbles of air, trapped centuries ago as snow compacted in the glacier. And we could hear the popping sounds pop as the ice was slowly melting and releasing that fresh pre Industrial Revolution air into our more polluted modern world. You should be able to hear it too in my short video clip.

The only wildlife sightings here were some Arctic terns flying overhead and some glaucous gulls, both of which I failed to capture (but see below). Anyway, the scenery was more than enough to keep me captivated and my camera very busy!

We were out for about 90 minutes. When we returned to the ship there were hot drinks and little cakes. I tried, and failed, to resist the latter!

Evening fun

In the evening there was the captain's welcome drinks, a pretty informal affair compared to more conventional cruises I believe. But many of us made the effort to dress a little smarter, there was bubbly to mark the occasion, and all the expedition team and senior crew members introduced themselves.

This was intended to flow straight into Ryan’s daily briefing, but he was interrupted by the appearance of more belugas. We hurried back to our cabin to get our cameras, as did most people, and tried again to get photos, this time from our balcony. Again they were rather too far off, although not quite so far as this morning’s sighting.

Returning to the briefing we heard more about the plan for tomorrow, with another zodiac ride and our first shore excursion. Also the weather forecast – temperatures of 16 or 17 degrees!

We then went to dinner, sitting with Australians Sue and Rob whom we’d met yesterday at the Hilton breakfast, and an English couple, Martin and Ann. There was a good a la carte menu as promised. I chose smoked salmon, pasta and a rather rich chocolate torte.

We went to a talk by the on board photographer, Kris, hoping to get useful tips about photography in this environment, but much of it was more general and therefore things we already knew. However I liked seeing the examples he used from his own Arctic portfolio.

Side note: after the trip we were sent a photo journal of the trip, with many of the photos Kris took during the voyage. I have his permission to share any I want to, so here is one he took on this day.

During the evening the sun had come out so I took a few more photos from our balcony before bed. We were just talking about having a slightly earlier night, as it was to be a prompt start in the morning, when there was an announcement over the PA that some large whales had been spotted and the ship was turning to get closer. So of course we grabbed our parkas and headed up to the observation deck with our cameras. It was still lovely and sunny so we stayed quite a while and managed to get some OK shots. I learned later that these were sei whales, a new species to us.

Eventually though we did go to bed and, as we were out in the open sea by now, we settled down to be rocked to sleep!