We now left Nordaustlandet, over lunch the ship made the ~70km over to Svalbard’s main island – Spitsbergen. First crossing the Hinlopen Strait and then into the Lomfjorden; destination for the afternoon was the Faksevågen site.

And once again the plan was thwarted – as one of the white stones close to the original landing site turned out to be (likely) another polar bear. Now was the time of binoculars and the cameras with the big lenses – most folks were out and about, watching the bear from a distance.

The expedition team was meanwhile working on a plan B – and were eventually ready to offer an alternate landing on the other side of they bay – far away from the polar bear and the potential danger.

As such we made it ashore for another short hike, this time up a hill for great views of the area. The real shocking piece here was all the plastic littering the beach – from fishing equipment to all sorts of more domestic plastic garbage … all brought in by the currents and washed ashore. The expedition team had prepared a garbage collection point at the zodiac site – and we were encouraged to collect plastic garbage during the hike and bring it back for proper disposal via the Clean-Up Svalbard program. The result was (shockingly) massive … five big bags and two barrels filled with plastic – plus several pieces too big to even fit in there.