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Published: August 11th 2018
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Around 8 am our ship arrived at Poolepynten - a wide, flat peninsula on the eastern side of Prins Karis Forland, the long narrow island off Spitsbergen's west coast. On arrival we received a message over the sound system advising that there were indeed Walruses on the beach!
Passengers were taken ashore in their colour groups - there are 6 in total and unfortunately I am in Pink, which was the last in the list. This meant, however, that I didn't have to rush to get ready today and made my way to breakfast around 9:30am.
After breakfast I headed to Deck 9 to walk some laps, whilst listening to my podcast and checking out the activities on the water, including the landing. Using my Nikon zoom lens I could actually see the group of Walruses on the beach, which was exciting.
Finally I heard the 15 minute announcement for the Pink group so I suited up and headed to Deck 3 Wet Room to get my boots and to be ready for our 12:15 departure.
It was a bit warmer today - around 10 degrees - so I didn't need the fleece later today. Onto the
zodiacs and it didn't take too long to get to shore. We then had to tune in our Quietvox's as we needed to listen to our Expedition staff member and not make any sounds that might frighten off the Walruses.
We walked along the beach, listening to Uli (who is THE walrus expert and quite a character!) until we got to where the line had been drawn in the sand, that we couldn't cross. They wanted us at least 30 meters away from this creatures - and looking at the size of them and their tusks, I was only too happy to oblige.
There were 15 Walrus in this group and you will see from the photos, they were quite happy to be lounging around. Uli was able to explain to us who each of the 15 were and also to give us some idea of what they were doing and why. We spent a good 30 minutes watching them and listening to Uli but soon it was time for us to make our way back to the landing spot.
Lifejackets back on, then back onto the zodiacs for our trip back to the ship. I had
lunch today on The Pool Deck - pumpkin soup and a BBQ chicken wrap. I decided to also try another of their special cocktails - this one was called the Silver Spirit and was quite delicious!
After lunch I watch some more of VEEP in my cabin and then around 4pm I headed to the Expedition desk to sort out my shore excursions when we get closer to Iceland. Around 4:30 the ship sailed into Isfjorden, Spitsbergen for a ship's cruise however the weather wasn't very nice so there wasn't much to see.
I spent some time updating my blog as we have a small amount of internet - enough to write the blog but not enough to load photos. We haven't had any internet for the past 3 or 4 days so to get a few messages from afar was rather exciting! We also know that the connection will be fleeting so I want to take advantage of it while I can.
At 5:30 we had our recap and briefing and found out a bit about our next destination. Today we leave Svalbard and overnight we will be heading to the island of Jan Mayen. At
our briefings there is always a couple of present rations by different members of the Expedition team. Tonight Karolina shared with us a journey she did to the North Pole. It was a really fascinating presentation and very entertaining.
I wasn't hungry tonight so decided not to go out for dinner and instead enjoyed a movie in my room. Later on, around 10pm I ordered in a penne alla'arrabiata (entree size) which was delicious and had just the right hit of chili
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