Ice for Dessert – again …

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We were taking a bit of detour this evening … the Ocean Novo had seen polar bears in an ice field to the North earlier the day – so we tried our luck, heading North … getting to an ice field right in time for the cheese cart or dessert (well make that and for me). We did not see any polar bears – though the atmosphere with the ice was stunning. (For the record: photos below were taken at around 22:45.)

And this is how it looks like in the middle of the night … when the sun sits right in the North.

An icy day at sea

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We had left Svalbard for now and were now in the crossing over to Greenland (~500 nautical miles) – and as such enjoying a leisurely day at sea.

In the late morning light fog had started to come in and we had hit a field of marine ice. No problem for Hanseatic Inspiration – with strengthened hull we were easily passing though the ice and continuing our trip.

As with previous days at sea, again multiple lectures were offered – while the crew was pampering us – what shall it be for lunch: T-Bone steak or oysters?

Before dinner we were kept busy with a fashion show … pretty much showcasing every piece of clothing on offer in the ship’s small boutique (which meant, the show was kind of repetitive).

Ice for (third) Dessert …

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It had already been a great day, with time ashore, a polar bear show and a cocktail-hour pre-/recap gathering. But there was more to come …

The first highlight was another visit of the Japanese-Peruvian restaurant. For some reason (well – I guess, the timing of the second highlight) there were only two tables to cater for here today, which resulted in a service even more attentive than usual. The food (they had just changed the menu) was delicious … and dessert was the clear highlight today. As we could not decide for a dessert, we ended up taking both – and their interpretation of a pavlova was the clear winner – possibly the best (food) dessert of the whole trip.

Well – after dinner the second highlight was waiting: a zodiac cruise in the Liefdefjord in front of the Monacobreen (Monaco Glacier) … or (in other words)the third, (now) ice-based (and calorie-burning) dessert of the evening.

The cruise took us about an hour towards and along the glacier (5km wide and 40m high) – and then through the ice back to the ship.

Polar Bear Alert at Gråhuken

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During lunch we had made it back into the Woodfjord, now heading for Gråhuken – place of the hut, where Hermann and Christiane Ritter had spent the winter 1934/35 along with their hunting aid Karl Johan Nikolaisen). The site will be off limits for tourists from the coming (2025) season, hence a last chance to visit and get a glimpse of the hut and an idea of the living conditions during that winter.

My zodiac group eventually got called and we made it into the rubber boots and then on into a waiting zodiac, heading for the beach – when out of a sudden the instruction to abort blared through the radio. A polar bear had been sighted in some distance – and we were directly brought back to the ship … those already ashore were immediately evacuated – with no humans left ashore in less than 15 minutes.

While it was a bit disappointing to not get to see the hut – the show the polar bear put up was fully compensating for that. The bear was taking a pass slowly along the shore line, easily watchable from the ship using binoculars, photos also kind of worked out – even with simpler cameras (as mine) – check the zoomed-in picture below and look for the white bits along the shore.