Svalbard 2015-11: Fuglefjorden, Hamiltonbukta & Alicehamna

Day 13: July 11th ~ Two zodiac trips, & an on-deck BBQ
Be warned: This is a long one. 
That said, my notes were minimal, so there're not many words, but there are lots of pics.
Breakfast was early again & began at 0700, but I ignored Gary's 0630 call & slept in till 0720.
Oops!
That meant I had time for only a small bowl of porridge, a coffee & 1/2 a cup of tea or I'd've missed the 0800 zodiacs.
It was to be a morning of cruising Fuglefjorden, a 3-pronged fjord on the NW of the island of Spitzbergen.

Heidi scanning the land for bears

Barnacle geese. That one with white on reminds me
of the paradise ducks I saw in Waitaki NZ

The black blobs are the other zodiacs

As you can see from the pics, the sea was really still & like a mirror.

The sea is a mirror

According to the Puffin Post, the north & east coasts of Svalbard are not moderated by the gulf stream or similar warm sea currents, so the world's 3rd largest ice-cap was to our NE.

Striations in the ice

As with the one we'd visited in Norway, this fjord of fugles was fairly full of them.

However, not having an all-singing, all-dancing camera, I didn't bother with the birds as much as the 'ice-planet' landscape.
I didn't see any Tauntauns or Wampas, tho. ;-)

Inversion above a min-berg

Ditto

Ice is blue

This pic starred as 2015's Xmas card

Glacier about to crash into the fjord

Another Xmas '15 Xmas card

I think the barnacle geese at the top were the only birds I shot. 
Apart from those sitting on ice-floes, anyway.

I've rarely seen sea this still

Photographing photographer, Carmen

Aforementioned bird on an ice-floe

Carmen contemplating

Castles in the ice

I managed to catch it calving.
Sadly, a photo does not contain the sound
of a glacier giving in to gravity

Bravery or idiocy?

Brash ice after the calving
We were a way off, & I noticed a mini-tsunami headed our way.
It had more or less dissipated by the time it reached our
zodiac, but the 2 zodiacs closer in got bobbed around a bit!

The little black blob in the brash-ice on the left is a PP zodiac

I have just watched GoT7 on DVD, & that mound reminds
me of where the heroes took a stand beyond the wall

A slice of brash-ice

The mountains' reflections in the sea

I think these 2 are Scott & Jay paddling through the brash.

Something else a photo doesn't capture is the sound of brash ice as we cruised through it.

Shame!

Le Coq Sportif ??

Because the zodiacs had meandered around for a bit, the kayakers caught up with us.

At various points on our zodiac cruise, bearded & ringed seals bobbed up to take a shufti at us.

Sadly, I was never quick enough to focus & get a pic before they bobbed under again :-(

They'd've been wary of bears (being top of the menu), & we'd seen tracks in the snow on the hillsides which may have been made by a polar bear.

NZ Andy approaches the PP .   .   .

According to my notes, we set off with Heidi at 0815 & got back to the PP at 1140.
After >3 hours on a zodiac in the cold, & absolutely No chance of a Rule 10, I was very glad to be back aboard the PP.

& gets ready to dismount
(or whatever it's called when you get out! ;-p )

Dobby lined up for her turn

Patterns like icing on a chocolate cake

Leaving Fuglefjord behind .  .  .

& heading east towards Raudfjorden

My notes say lunch was paella, & I sat with the 3 Malayans, Robyn & Diane.

In the afternoon we were due at Hamiltonbukta ~ a bay on the western side of the Raudfjorden. This meant cruising north & east of Fuglefjorden, & dropping down into Raudfjorden.













Raudfjorden is more or less the fjord with the most northerly entrance on Spitzbergen.

We passengers are 'organised' while Michael awaits with his camera

On the way there we had our Aurora Expedition photo taken.

A latecomer ;-p
You can see what a beautiful day it ws

Hanging around on deck after the photoshoot, I noticed tracks in the snow onshore.
Polar bears, possibly?

A bigger slice of brash-ice

I think these were fox, not bear

Then it was time to don our gear again ready for a trip ashore.

My zodiac was the last to leave, so I got this shot of
PPers dwarfed by the glacier

Warmer feet standing on a rock rather than an ice-floe?

You can see the blue edge of the glacier
either side of the triangular peak

The ice-sculptures on the beach were gorgeous, & I spent quite a bit of time wandering into the curve of the bay getting pics.

I had to lie on the seaweed to get this one,
but I think the result was worth it

I just noticed ~
If you look at this the other way up,
it's a bit like a polar bear hugging a rock ;-p

An Ali Baba ice-sculpture

Ditto

The sea was still still behind this ice

The sun was quite warm & lambent on the ice left behind by the sea

A fat duck?
Yer. Right. My imagination is off the wall ;-)

How can the sea still be so still it reflects the
mountains? In the UK this effect usually only
occurs when the tide turns in the early morning

A troll-sized arrow-head of ice

PPers on the sandy beach

A phallic floe

With a bird on top

Call it my imagination (again), but I see a tryceratops profile in this floe

Back on the zodiacs we say our farewells to Hamiltonbukta

A tiny zodiac by a massive glacier, & Diane looks on

Another calving sees us on our way after
about 2 & a half hours

I see the Puffin Post about our trips to Fuglefjorden & Hamiltonbukta provided a reason for all the different shades of blue in ice. Apparently, the whiter the ice, the more air bubbles there are in it. In other words, it's been less compressed. Conversely, the deeper blue of glaciers shows they have been compressed much more & contain less air bubbles. 
That may possibly explain why 2/3 of a berg is submerged???
If you know better, do tell :-)
Once we were back on board, the PP pootled across Raudfjorden to Alicehamna while we had tea (with no cake, boo! ), & I spent time in the sauna before chatting to Tony & Diane in the bar in between bits of reading. 
Before I went in the sauna, Gary kindly copied all my pics from the SD card onto my USB. There were nearly 900 & my 8 gig card was full!
Oops!
According to Google:
The bay was named Alicehamna after the Princesse Alice, the ship Prince Albert I of Monaco used during his oceanographic expeditions to Svalbard from 1898 to 1907. Albert was a benefactor for a number of polar scientists, such as William S. Bruce, Fridtjof Nansen and Gunnar Isachsen, who, with the support of the Prince, was in many ways the catalyst of modern Norwegian research in Svalbard.
Google also says Raudfjorden is named after the red sandstone mountains in the east, but I think it must've been a hot summer if the explorers could see the colour of the rocks?
I also did a bit of packing ~ tomorrow would be our penultimate day, & I didn't want to have to pack after our PP Party, just in case I was 'worse for wear' ;-)
There was to be no formal 'dinner' that evening. Instead we were to have a BBQ on the fore-deck while we were anchored at Alicehamna.
Sadly, the mist came down shortly after we'd up-anchored, & by the time we had pootled across the fjord, visibility was very limited.
However, not so limited we couldn't see all the colourful hats provided by Aurora for our boozy BBQ.
I have absolutely no notes about what happened after I'd pfaffed with packing, so my memory & the pictures must tell the story.

The Ruzesky brothers ~
descendants of Roald Amundsen

PPs passengers get stuck into all the wonderful food

The Pilot, Ole
I've called him Ola in previous blogs, but good old
Google tells me that, while it sounds like Ola, 
the spelling is Ole 

Remember the Orkney malt?
Well, there's some in my coffee mug!

Here's one party which won't end up in the kitchen

These 2 ~ taken from the top deck,
with still plenty of food on offer :-q

The dancing kicks off

Sarah dances with Jasper

Michael & I snap each other while Iren & Andy The Hat look on!

This is the 1st of several Congas!

More evidence of the aforementioned booze .  .  .

which is clearly loosening up the dancing muscles :-)

Great hair-do, Sean

The Aus lads lay down some moves on port .  .  .

without the benefit of alcohol. 
Impressive!

Is he doing Riverdance?  ;-)

5 of the 6 Aus lads boogie on down while Sarah looks on

Voguing?
Madonna move over

Like I said previously
No alcohol was involved in this dance
Awesome :-D

They were more staid on the starboard side ;-p 

Heidi ~ Aurora's Canadian Naturalist
chats with Andy & Deirdre from NZ

Irene

The frivolity on the foredeck continues with a Salsa

That's tall young Jack with his auntie Sarah

It's dance around your handbag time!

Some of the girls from the crew join in

Er? Andy dancing without an arm up his back? ;-)

Crew & Dobby. A bit worse for wear??

I think so

Jenny does a flamingo impression

See what I meant about the colourful hats?

The PPers party-on while Jenny stares into the mist

By this time Tony had helped me finish the malt,
& strutted his stuff :-D

btw: the dreads came with the hat

Diane captures Tony's moves for posterity

Swing your partner round & round :-D

Swing the purple round & round?

Elena models the purple wig

The non-dancers look on

AndyK, Deirdre, AndyS & Sean

Peter on the left & Michael on the right
I've no clue as to the person in the middle?

Gary: the Aurora Tour Manager

Body-popping Gary

Tony & Peter having fun

Having helped me drink the Orkney malt, Tony was now on Cola!

Is this a prawn I see before me?

Sean contemplating his empty can

Sean & hat

Ole the Pilot looks down from the bridge

That's my Aurora mug.
It no longer had malt in it!

The beers cans were piling up

Deep discussion on port-side

Still Life at the OK Corral ;-)

Captain, Yuri, contemplating a bop

Maybe Ole will join him?

The obligatory Conga
Nearly every party gets to this point eventually ;-p

The beat goes on

At last, I get the hat I wanted :-)

Greg (of the Amussen book) & 2 crew

Taken by Andy

Dya wanna dance?

Another photo of a photographer.
This time it's me

I'll dance anywhere!

Even on my own

Yuri still considering a bop

Andy in 'that hat' ! ! !

Yuri gettin' a groove on .   .   .

layin' down some moves .   .   .

'n playing the air guitar

Uma & John move over!

Doing 'The Bump'?

We were more or less into the final throes at this point

I think Andy'd had enough to drink by this time?
He wasn't running away from the camera!

Someone else dances on my platform

And even Peter is shaking a leg arm ;-)

Jenny waves from warmth of the bridge

Andy, Tony & Diane chew some fat in funny hats

What a great party :-D

The expedition photo