Texas Bar and a Polar Bear!

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This morning the Silver Cloud anchored off Texas Bar, Liefdefjorden at 8:30am and as I was in the first group scheduled to disembark at 9am, I had my breakfast delivered to my room.

Texas Bar is an old fur trappers hut which was built by the famous Norwegian hunter, Hilmar Nous in 1927 and left with the promising name! The hut now belongs to Sysselmannen, which is the governing body of Svalbard and it is occasionally used by scientists.

When we landed our guide gave us the option of just exploring around the hut or coming in a good hike up to get some views over the bay. I chose the hike as it was much more appealing than just doing laps around Deck 9! It was a really interesting walk as we had Liz with us and what she don't know about plants ain't worth knowing! The walk up wasn't easy as there were lots of loose rocks plus you need to tey to avoid stepping on any of the vegetation but it was certainly worth it, as the pictures will show.

With any landings we do, we always have bear guards with us. We had just heard about another tour group who's scouting party had been attack by a bear and the other guard was forced to shoot it. Very unfortunate event and our team did not want to face this option. So far though, we had still not seen any bears .... anywhere.

Once we had spent enough time at the top, we started to walk back down to where the hut was. I went inside to check it out and surprise surprise, there was actually bottles of alcohol in there haha! Even better though, our ship team had set up a hot chocolate table near where we landed and we're offering each of us a cup of hot chocolate - with either Bailey's or Rum in it! I chose Rum - dur!

Back on board ship around 11ish and I spent some time downloading my photos to my iPad, did some washing and ironed a top for dinner tonight.

Lunch around 1pm - white bean soup and a chicken caesar salad with a glass of pinto grigio.

Afternoon relaxing until 3pm when the ship went through Monacobreen Liefdedjorden - the northwest Spitsbergen National Park. 13 Kms wide at the entrance from Woodfjord, the sides become more and more mountainous the deeper we sailed the 30 km long bay. At 5:30 the ship set sail for Smeerenburg.

Back to room then Panorama Lounge for a gin & tonic. I had been invited to a Solo Travellers dinner tonight, so when I saw Barbara I checked to see if she was also going to the dinner, which she was.

At 6:30 Skulk and expedition team provided us with an update on tomorrow as well as some interesting presentations from Jonathan on Icebergs.

Quick change after the briefing then headed to The Restaurant to meet Natasha (cruise consultant) and the other solos. Barbara was there so I sat next to her, then we met the others. There were only 6 of us - Catalina, David, another Barbara and a lady from Switzerland but I didn't catch her name. Barbara (from Florida) had been given a bottle of Dom Perigon which she didn't want to open unless someone was happy to share it with her! Oh ok then!! Both Natasha and I helped her to drink it - very special!

We had a lovely dinner with good conversation but just as we finished main course, the ship started to 'brake' and then Skulk announced a polar bear sighting! Everyone bolted out of the restaurant - I ran to my room, grabbed my jacket and camera and headed to Deck 9. There were a few of my photo and wildlife search buddies on deck and we were all so excited about trying to spot the bear. It was in the water, and a long way from our ship, so was hard to find. Carl helped me to find it as he had binoculars- yay! Spotted him swimming - you could only see his nose moving through the water as he swam along! He swam for a long way, across the bay and then along the coastline. Eventually he decided to come out of the water - omg!! So exciting. Then he walked along the coast a bit before deciding to climb up to the next level. He then walked along the entire stretch - so amazing as you could see him without the lens but of course my zoom lens made it better. Spent ages out of deck watching him lumber along. Took heaps of photos but hard to get a good one that wasn't blurred.

Eventually I headed back to The Restaurant to join up with the others and everyone was talking excitedly! Stayed for a while before eventually heading back to my suite. I enjoyed just looking at the view out of my window as it was still clear as day.

Sometime after midnight the view was even more amazing so I decided to rug up and head up to Deck 9 to take some photos. The Panoramic shot in this entry was one I took that night.

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