Longyearbyen, Norway (Svalbard Archipelago) - Day 14 - July 15, 2023

Day 2 in Longyearbyen/Svalbard started early. We had a 6:50 AM meeting time for our "Wildlife Safari by boat".  We got up at 5 AM (Chris's idea), got dressed and headed down to the Living Room bar for coffee and pastries.  Much to my delight I discovered that they had almond croissants!

The ship had to move to a mooring within the Advent Bayt this morning as a larger cruise ship was going to dock today.  So, we were the last tour off our ship to the dock and we had to take the tender when we returned.  


We boarded a large metallic ship (certified for arctic waters), the Billefjord, and headed south out of the bay and into the larger Isfjorden fjord. We were hoping to see whales, but no such luck. I did see a number of seabirds, including some Atlantic puffins, and others that our resident ornithologist on board Ronald Orenstein who go his Ph.D. at University of Michigan helped me identify. Our guide on the Billefjord boat kept constantly commenting on how wonderfully lucky we were with our blue sky and 45F weather - when Chris asked how often such cloudless days occur here during their brief summer he said, "about one in twenty" (ie. 5%) and "never on my days off!"

Atlantic Puffin



Northern Fulmar so-called foul gull for its ability to projectile vomit its stomach contents onto you as a defense mechanism.


Black-legged Kittiwake

Black Guillemot


On the boat trip, we also passed by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault aka The Doomsday Seed Vault. The triangular white building up on the hill...the entrance is to the right...the black area. It currently has 1,214,827 seed samples from almost every country in the world...it concentrates on crop seeds.


We also passed the Svalbard Satellite Station...the white balls on top of the hill.


Svalbard is also home to the Arctic World Archive which is a facility for data preservation not far from the seed vault.  It also has all of Github's Open Source Code.

After the ship returned to port, we walked into town to visit the Svalbard Museum. It had information on whaling, mining, explorers, environment etc.  

I really enjoyed a video on ocean currents produced by the Nansen Legacy which is a "novel and holistic" Arctic research project.

The boat sailed at about 4 PM to head to Iceland...we will have two days at sea.  On our exit from the fjord, we sailed by a couple of beautiful glaciers...pictures below.  


Esmark Glacier

Nansen Glacier











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