13 Aug 2014

Polar Family

Conditions when we arrived off Wrangel Island in the early hours of yesterday morning were picture book perfect. There was not a cloud in the sky and not a breath of wind. We landed everybody in Doubtful Harbour and met up with the members of our High Arctic Expedition who had spent the last 10 days exploring the island. They were keen to tell us the stories of what they had seen and experienced as they explored the entire island in the company of the Rangers. This is something very few ‘outsiders’ have the opportunity to accomplish and the result was a hugely satisfied group of explorers.

We left behind the group of five people who were taking our Wrangel Overland Traverse expedition and returned to the ship before heading west to find the only area of ice left around the island. This is a big contrast to the conditions just two weeks ago. We went into the ice and launched the Zodiacs when we encountered a group of Walrus on an ice floe. They were mainly females with calves. By this time it was late in evening but we decided that dinner could wait while we continued ‘ice cruising’ by Zodiac. A Polar Bear was spotted so we cautiously approached what turned out to be two family groups. There was one female with three well developed cubs and another female with them that almost certainly had a young cub we couldn’t see.  We spent about an hour watching, enjoying and photographing these animals.

Dinner was late but even then most people found it hard to tear themselves away from the most incredibly beautiful sunset. Today is a new day and although the weather is not quite as good, I am confident that Wrangel will not disappoint.