Date: 4th July

Latitude & longitude: 80.39°N, 24.59°E
Wind speed: 7.4 knots
Wind direction: NW
Barometer:  1024 hPa
Air temperature: -3°C
Sea temperature: 0.3°C

We spent almost a full day of exploring today. Overnight, we headed out towards what’s known as the ‘polar desert’ — the barren northeast part of Svalbard.

Our first outing in the morning was to the archipelago’s northernmost island — Karl XII Oya. We cruised around in a Zodiac, on the lookout for bears, but instead we spotted some cute common eider ducks and puffins.

At lunch we were interrupted by an excited voice over the tannoy! A blue whale, port side! The blue whale can grow up to 28 metres long and weigh up to 90 tonnes, and their blow can be up to 12 metres high! With only about 3–12,000 of them left on Earth, it was a sight to behold.

In the afternoon we went out for a second Zodiac cruise to the island of Foynoya. We didn’t see any bears, but we did spot some walrus who popped up to watch us cruise by, curious about the drifting humans in their territory!

Later in the afternoon, back on board the Greg Mortimer, Ben entertained us all with the interesting tale of Andrée, Strindberg and Fraenkel’s attempt to cross the North Pole in a hot air balloon. Spoiler alert, they all perished! And were most likely mauled by polar bears!

See you tomorrow and thanks for reading!

Love from the A Team
Tanya, Gavin, Richard & Graeme