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Into the Pack Ice - Svalbard Expedition in Early Summer


MPS

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Alexander33

The bear on ice with his reflection in the frame is just a dream shot. Well-done on the whites with that ivory gull. What an experience!

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Just exceptional photography and excellent storytelling! Yes, the Bear on the ice with the orange sky luminosity is just fantastic.
Thanks for sharing your report. 

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offshorebirder

Fantastic sighting and superb photos @MPS!   

 

I am very jealous of your Polar Bear and Iceland Gull encounter.

 

 

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Epic encounter.

@janzinNever mind the guts in the shot. I am told photoshop etc., can make them look like an Ice cream complete with chocolate flake on top.:lol:

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Fantastic bear sighting and pictures and stunning shot of the Ivory gull.

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Wonderful sighting and superb photos. Well done!

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DAY 10 - GLACIERS, ICE AND ANOTHER PHOTO BEAR

 

When we awoke, the ship was heavily rocking from side to side. We were passing along the Northeast coast of Nordaustlandet, which is known for the coastal glaciers that stretch for a full 180 kilometers of shoreline. It appeared that many people on board were not feeling too well. The weather was bad, not much light, windy and somewhat foggy. When I went out to get some fresh air, a wave pushed water through the vent holes at the side of the ship and the reached far above my knees. I was glad for the invention of waterproof fabrics and decided to better wear the floatation vest whenever going outside during heavy waves.

 

We reached the first of many spectacular waterfalls where the water was covered with crushed glacial ice. We would have wished for better light and a more stable platform. These waterfalls are fed by bluish creeks running along the top of the glacier and make a grandiose photo subject when flying a drone. But considering the heavy winds and the bucking deck I decided to leave this for another trip under better conditions. The two other pilots tried their luck but both nearly lost their drones. Rumor has it that many drones are being lost on these trips.

 

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The first of many glacial waterfalls on Nordaustlandet

 

Pulling away from the waterfall and continuing our journey East, we reach a number of huge icebergs with intense color.

 

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Iceberg off the coast of Nordaustlandet

 

The plan now was to circumnavigate Nordaustlandet and try our luck for bears in Hinlopen Strait. Checking out several islands we came up empty handed. But then after dinner, while standing on the bridge with binoculars my wife Renate finds her second bear resting on a distant pebble beach, in fact in five kilometers distance. I had seen the blob as well, but when I saw it, I was not sure whether this was a resting bear or a resting piece of ice.

 

When we got closer and the bear stayed put, it was decided to launch the Zodiacs. But apparently the appetite for bears had somewhat leveled off among passengers folowing the bear on the pack ice and we went out with only one Zodiac, piloted by Ives. The light was glorious, and so was the scenery. The sun was getting lower near midnight and the light was definitely yellowish. When we reached the shore-line, the bear lifted its head - and yawns. Sliding tracks in the ice and snow behind the bear showed that he had come from walking the glacier.

 

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Polar Bear in Hinlopen Strait

 

This bear had no interest to run away, in fact he started to develop a genuine interest in us and slowly but steadily started to move in our direction.

 

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Polar Bear on the move

 

We took this as our cue to move further away from him. Which in turn prompted him to sit down and yawn. Apparently an interested but somewhat tired photo bear.

 

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Yawning Polar Bear

 

But seeing us stopping again a bit further along the shore-line, his interest and determination -or his hunger- was revived again and he began to close in on us one more time.

 

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Final approach

 

We then decided that he had performed perfectly enough for us tonight and that we should rather go for an exploratory excursion along the coast under absolutely beautiful soft and yellowish lighting conditions.

 

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Glacier front under the midnight sun

 

An otherworldy landscape unfolded in front of us. Fog descended from the icy hillsides and countless rivulets and creeks of meltwater spilled in the remarkably calm sea. Arctic terns were hunting the resulting patches of brackish water where the largest creeks met the sea. Here they seemed to find a particularly good harvest of tiny crustaceans. Another good photo opportunity for these graceful birds, that can be incredibly aggressive close to their nesting areas.

 

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Small waterfalls dot the glacial shore-line

 

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Is there liquid water on Mars?

 

On passing the bear for a final time during our way back, we saw him still prowling the tip of a little pebble peninsula between a glacial creek and the shore where we left him an hour ago. Time for a parting shot of this great photo bear who would sadly turn out to be our last bear to be photographed during the trip.

 

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Parting shot

 

Edited by MPS
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iphonewifeNikonhusband

Another gorgeous photo series and another bear!!! Dying of envy and loving this trip report. 

Also we feel we will never get to svalbard. Now Lufthansa on strike, augh. 

Edited by iphonewifeNikonhusband
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Another grande finale for Bears. Some lovely ice portraits too.

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DAYS 11-12 HEADING BACK TO LONGYEARBYEN

 

Early in the morning we were passing Moffen Island, a rather small island resembling an atoll, which is a wildlife reserve for birds and walrus where ships are not allowed to get closer than 500 meters. We see dozens of walrus from a distance and also two Sabine's gulls, another birding rarity.

 

Immediately after leaving Moffen Island, the ship slowed down because two Blue Whales had been seen. No photo taken from a ship will show you the true size of the animal. For that you have to get in the air.

 

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One of the two Blue Whales seen near Moffen Island

 

The weather conditions were rather difficult, but Yves Adams was able to quickly launch his drone and capture some epic video of this whale, which you can watch on Yves' Instagram account #yves_adams

 

One of the birds that we two truly wanted to photograph up close was the Little Auk, called by some "the penguins of the North" based on their appearance. I had been lobbying among guests to find supporters for a dedicated landing to visit a colony of these birds and finally everyone agreed that we should land on Fuglesongoya, which means bird song island in Norwegian, very aptly named, as the thousands of Little Auk cannot be overheard. After scrambling up a hillside of tumbled rocks, and armed with a lot of patience, the birds who had been flying away after our intrusion came back one after one and we could get some nice shots of these fascinating birds.

 

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Little Auks on Fuglesongoya

 

After the visit to the bird song island, MS Freya proceeds into Fuglefjorden, for us to visually enjoy the beauty of the bay of Svitjodbreen glacier. A difficult feat in an area where another ship had recently run aground, ending the cruise for their passengers after just two days.

 

Conditions were favorable and this is a marvelous area for drone photography so we had all drones in the air until the batteries were emptied.

 

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MS Freya in Fuglefjorden (drone photo)

 

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Svitjodbreen Glacier (drone photo)

 

Next on the agenda was a Zodiac landing on Amsterdamoya, where we had seen our second bear and where a walrus colony can be found. The bear is seen high up on a ledge on an island across the bay, so we could land without problems and proceed on foot to the walrus colony where a few walrus put on quite the show in the shallow water. Being very curious they took a lot of interest in what us intruders were doing on the beach and often came in so close that we had to move back because we had not packed any wide-angle for this landing.

 

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Am I not beautiful?

 

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Close encounter

 

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High Five

 

Suddenly heavy rain sat in and after getting soaked we returned to the Zodiacs. The idea to pay another visit to the bear on the other side of the bay was dropped because of the adverse conditions. What followed was heavy waves all the way through to Isfjorden where we did a final fairwell Zodiac trip to another glacier front. We finally saw two King Eider males sitting ashore but they were shy and flew off before we could get any good photos. One of them already was losing his breeding plumage and looked rather drab.

 

A really fantastic trip on the MS Freya had come to an end - but we still had two days to explore on our own in Longyearbyen.

 

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iphonewifeNikonhusband

Beautiful photos again!  I went to IG and saw the drone footage of the whale, amazing. 

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Alexander33

I can’t imagine anyone turning the down the chance to see a polar bear from a Zodiac, even after the superb experience you had with the polar bear on the sea ice. You never know what a bear is going to do or what opportunities might present themselves. Great photos of a bear in a different environment. 
 

“Otherworldly” is definitely the right word for that landscape, especially when fog and that moody light roll in. I don’t usually spend much time photographing landscapes, but the scenics in Svalbard are just too special to pass up. You certainly made the most of it — some great photos. 
 

You also capitalized on getting some very nice walrus portraits from the water. 
 

As your report shows, it’s not the quantity of the sightings that you have, but the quality, and you definitely had some of the best that anyone could expect. I can only hope to approach the quality of your sightings when we are there next month. 
 

Thanks for sharing. 
 

 

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iphonewifeNikonhusband
1 hour ago, Alexander33 said:

I can’t imagine anyone turning the down the chance to see a polar bear from a Zodiac, even after the superb experience you had with the polar bear on the sea ice. You never know what a bear is going to do or what opportunities might present themselves. Great photos of a bear in a different environment. 
 

“Otherworldly” is definitely the right word for that landscape, especially when fog and that moody light roll in. I don’t usually spend much time photographing landscapes, but the scenics in Svalbard are just too special to pass up. You certainly made the most of it — some great photos. 
 

You also capitalized on getting some very nice walrus portraits from the water. 
 

As your report shows, it’s not the quantity of the sightings that you have, but the quality, and you definitely had some of the best that anyone could expect. I can only hope to approach the quality of your sightings when we are there next month. 
 

Thanks for sharing. 
 

 

DITTO

 

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marvellous photos, and what fantastic sightings of the bear, especially the one on the kill. 

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Love those Little Auks and Walrus shots.

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Beautiful photo of the Little Auks.

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DAYS 13-14 OUT AND ABOUT AROUND LONGYEARBYEN

 

We had booked a rental car for our last two days. Longyearbyen has a total of 46 kilometers of road, most of which is unpaved. At every road leading out of the city of Longyearbyen, there are the much photographed polar bear warning signs.

 

Outside this perimeter, the requirement is that you carry a flare gun plus at least two flash-bang cartridges whenever you are out of your car. These can be rented in town and so we did. It is worthwhile to note that the biggest part of the fee is for the cartridges (at about 20$ each) which you must buy and cannot return. Besides this legal requirement, there is the recommendation to carry a gun, but when I wanted to apply for the rental a few weeks before flying to Svalbard, it turned out that the Governor needs ten weeks to process the request. This might be related to my special situation of having done military service but not having a European gun ownership card, so better check the rules for your personal circumstances, they will sure be different than mine. I carried the flare gun whenever we left the car, even for a short distance. We had seen that bears can virtually come out of nowhere, especially if they had been hiding behind rocks.

 

We have seen a few tourists not complying with the rules, which is at least very stupid at any time of the year, but is extremely dangerous especially during the colder months of the year when bears are often seen closer to or even inside city limits.

 

We had plans to revisit the foxes taking advantage of the glorious light that presented itself during the evening and night during a spell of unusually warm weather for Longyearbyen, reaching 16° Celsius (64° F). More Little Auks had come to nest on the cliffs and they were now no longer limited to the upper areas of the cliffs but were just a hundred meters above the road. Good food opportunities for the foxes.

 

We used the strategies to attract the attention of the foxes that we had learned from our guide Oddgeir at the beginning of the trip and they worked extremely well. Foxes came even closer now, which might be related to the fact that it was just the two of us.

 

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Arctic Fox up close

 

High on our somewhat ambitious bucket list for these two days were a yawning fox and a fox curled up for sleep, and we managed to get both from this very cooperative little fellow.

 

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Yawn, the midnight sun really wears me out

 

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Checking up on two photographers before drifting back to sleep

 

There were lots of other wildlife opportunities to be had, including reindeer, which had visibly grown their antlers a bit more since we last saw them before our expedition on the ship.

 

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Backlit reindeer male

 

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Reindeer close-up

 

A Red-Throated Diver, normally a very shy bird, did not fly away when we got out of the car, presumably because it was just too windy.

 

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Red-Throated Diver

 

If you are also into photographing ghost towns and old mining camps, Longyearbyen with its rich mining history also has a lot to offer, even within the city limits.

 

But the icing on our farewell cake came when we suddenly saw a group of eight Beluga Whales passing close by the shore. This all came and went very quickly but my wife Renate managed to get a great shot which you will soon be able to see on our Instagram account #seiler_wild_nature_photography.

 

A great trip came to an end, we learned a lot, and we have to admit that Svalbard is such an incredible place that we are already making plans to go back! I will conclude this trip report with another installment with some recommendations which you might find useful when you are planning a trip to this wonderful and amazing arctic archipelago.

 

Edited by MPS
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gorgeous shots of the fox and the diver! and so very lucky to see the belugas! awesome. Thank you for sharing your trip sightings and all the information put together. It was an enjoyable read. 

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Lovely photos as always and I am encouraged by what you have seen.

Edited by Galana
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offshorebirder
On 7/28/2022 at 11:18 AM, MPS said:

 

 

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Too many good photos to comment upon, but I especially like the Walrus with the kelp wig.

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SOME SVALBARD RECOMMENDATIONS

 

To conclude my trip report I will give a few recommendations which could be of use to others planning such a trip.

 

1. Selecting an Expedition

There is some variation in pricing of the trips even on the same small expedition ships, but the main difference is that the huge ships tend to cost less but reportedly have more comfort. I have no experience on big ships and probably never will because that is really not our style of traveling. Obvious disadvantages on bigger ships are that the focus is generally not so much on wildlife and in getting good photos. Then obviously these ships have higher decks, which limits your perspective. Some of the fjords and passages have stretches of shallow waters, which the big ships cannot navigate. They have many Zodiacs to launch and this could be a drawback as you might have to wait to get your turn and the best might have happened before you even get there.

On the smaller expedition ships it is essential that you select a ship that has excellent and highly experienced guides, ideally some who are also wildlife photographers and know what you are looking for. I cannot thank Joshua Holko enough to have selected Vega Expeditions with Oscar Westman and Yves Adams for our trip. They turned out to be incredibly good at what they do and above all they are also very nice and knowledgeable persons. They always put the guests first and they listened to what we wanted. For this to happen, you will of course need to say what subjects and shooting situations you have in mind and discuss it with them, they know the area like the back of their hands and they will always come with good proposals.

 

2. Personnel Gear Recommendations

You will need waterproof gear all the time, both on the ship and on the Zodiacs. Use technical fabrics and leave all cotton at home. Temperatures will vary so you need to dress in layers. Even in summer, down might come in handy. There are down coats and jackets that are waterproof, these are ideal. If down gets wet, it immediately loses its thermal insulation properties and thus becomes rather useless. Go for waterproof mid-level boots as well. There are a few that have a separate waterproof shell wrapped around the body which also covers the shoestring section. These are ideal and I cannot recommend them highly enough. Combine this with a pant where you can fit the size of the ankles to your boots and you are all set. We had GoreTex pants, but also some winter hiking pants from Bergans that have waterproof fabric layers made by Schoeller. Muckboots are sometimes required for wet landings. Choose a bigger size so that you can wear them with thick merino wool socks without restricting bloodflow. I think I already mentioned that knee pads come in handy because you will want to kneel a lot, on the ship, on the Zodiacs and on land. Goggles can be handy on the Zodiacs if there is heavy wind or precipitation. Gloves are recommended even in summer, but we did not need to use the heavy ones although we had packed them. I often opted for wearing light water-resistant gloves on the approach and them dropping them for handling the cameras. Balaclavas are also highly recommended because of the ever present wind.

 

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Retrieving gear from our camera backpacks during a land excursion

 

3. Camera Gear Recommendations

Let us talk about tripods first. We brought small tripods for shore excursions with heavy lenses, but actually used them only once. We might not carry them next time around. On the ship, tripod users are a curse, because they block the passageways for all others, unless they place themselves at the stern of the ship. Blocking is a problem because you will need to be fast to change positions as opportunities develop and sometimes you want to change gear in your cabins and race back. Tripods also have the disadvantage that you cannot easily compensate the ships low-frequency movements and the high-frequency vibrations of the engine are directly transmitted to your camera. Handholding provides a better means of compensation and your body can also help in absorbing high-frequency vibrations. Some people advocate bean bags, but they are difficult to use on-board the ship and are easily dropped into the sea. We brought some empty large ones, had difficulties of finding a suitable filling in Longyearbyen and in the end never used them. We often used our left arms as support when we were shooting from the ship. There is another reason why we do not recommend tripods. And that is that due to all the incessant jerky movements of the ship and Zodiacs, we do not recommend to use longer exposure times than 1/1600.

We are Nikon shooters and brought the Z9 for wildlife and our trusty D850 for landscapes and animalscapes. One D500 was used in a watertight housing. As regards lenses we were unable to procure the new Z long lenses before the trip (they came in the week of our return) and then mostly used our 180-400 f/4 with the built-in 1.4 teleconverter. We used the 500 PF for longer hiking excursions and for bird-in-flight photography, sometimes with an extender. The 70-200 lenses we did not use much, so might leave them at home the next time. As regards wide-angle lenses, we had the 8-15mm which I used only once in the pack ice (but I am glad I took it with us), the 12-24 and the 24-120. We would carry all of this again.

 

4. Water Protection for Camera Gear

All pro-level cameras have a high degree of water sealing. We did bring heavy Gore-Tex raincovers and never used them, but it is advisable to carry the cheap single-use plastic bags for rainfall. Sea water is deadly to electronics due to its ability to conduct electricity and thus smoke all your computer chips in an instant. You will thus want to protect your cameras from spray water during the approach with the Zodiacs by leaving them in waterproof, sealed bags. We had large 65 liter bags where we could fit all our cameras, even together with the photo backpack for land excursions. A good guide will announce when it will be safe for you to pull them out.

 

4. Flying Drones

There are rules in Svalbard for flying drones. And on a ship, the captain and expedition leads need to determine when they allow you to fly. Most of the area around Longyearbyen is off limits due to the airport, so is a zone around Ny Alesund. But this will not be your main problem. This usually is heavy winds and precipitation. Added difficulties are the fact that not so many satellites are visible from the extreme polar regions and that sudden geomagnetic storms resulting from solar activity can play havoc with the built-in compass and electronics in general. The ship also has powerful radar antennas which can easily interfere with your drone. Then there is the problem of launching and landing from a bobbing and moving platform. It is typical for drones to fly back to the stored home-point and land there when they lose contact to your remote control. In the meantime the boat has moved and your drone will then play submarine. It is safest to have a second person helping in visually locating your drone, so that you can land it manually even when it enters safe mode. You can either hand-catch it or try to land it on the upper deck when it is not too windy. Either way, this is not easy and you will need to practice with caution. Also make sure that no other passengers will be close by during take-off and landing.

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Excellent report, and excellent tips at the end. I am green with envy :)  Guess I'll just need to return!

 

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michael-ibk

Fantastic report with beautiful photography, thanks for sharing.

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The photography is mesmerizing and your recommendations are much appreciated. Thank you. 

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iphonewifeNikonhusband

Great trip report, beautiful photos, gear recommendations helpful!

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