7-20-15 14TH OF JULY GLACIER, SVALBARD: We woke up at Ny London, back on the west side of Spitsbergen and landed for hikes after breakfast. The site, Camp Mansfield, was established for mining marble in the early 1900’s. The project was a failure because the marble, harvested from a permafrost location, disintegrated when fully thawed. Two deteriorating shacks and rusted mining equipment remain abandoned on the site. Trash older than 50 years is considered an antique or relic or of historic significance and may not be touched, but anything left behind recently is garbage.
Ship's position - morning further south.
Ny London, Camp Mansfield.
Tired Wheelbarrow.
There was an antlerless reindeer not too far away and a handful of barnacle geese. The barnacle geese are so named because it was thought in Europe of the 1500’s that the geese, who disappeared from European harbors every summer when they came to the arctic to breed, turned into barnacles for the summer and then back to geese in the winter. That is, of course, a perfectly logical assumption.
Barnacle geese.
Tired reindeer.
A short walk took us across small, braided stream to two lakes set above the fiord. Both had lots of nesting water birds, ducks, geese, divers [loons], and terns, and their chicks. We also saw a long-tailed skua and took many bird pix.
Long-tailed skua.
Arctic terns have taken over this little island, two chicks left front.
More barnacles, in goose mode.
Eider female on the right.
Long-tailed duck with ducklings.
Red-throated diver with chick.
Red-throated divers, in the US these are loons, in Norway they are småloms.
One of the lakes with the fjord and a glacier in the far ground.
Ny London landscape with hikers.
After we all reassembled at the beach, it was the opportunity for the audacious to swim in the Arctic Ocean. At least a dozen people jumped or dove in, ignoring the floating ice not far away. No one stayed in very long. Neither Judy nor I were among the daring, even though a couple folks in our age bracket were so rash.
The swimmers could have warmed up at a cosy fire in this stove and had tea if the kettles didn't have all those bullet holes.
After lunch we cruised in the zodiacs at the 14th of July Glacier. First we went to another bird cliff rookery with more of the guillemots and puffins for the first time. Puffins are cartoon characters come to life. Kittiwakes have a nesting site high up on nearby cliffs. The lower cliffs are sedimentary and have been subject to tectonic stresses and show uplifting, tilting and folding.
Puffins...
Puffins...
Puffin, front and back.
Puffin...cute?
Brünnich's Guillemots.
The glacier is large and long and did a small calving show for us with a roar of thunder. It had been rumbling and groaning the whole time we cruised by. We also saw more geese, kittiwakes, guillemots and fulmars on and around the ice. Most of the visible face of the glacier is white, but some is deep blue. Some people saw reindeer this afternoon.
Glacier and mountains that were carved by other glaciers.
Blueness.
That splash is from a calf that just hit the water. You can see the big wave headed toward us.
Kittiwakes on ice.
Pink-footed geese with goslings.
