For our first sighting, we go chasing a bear that has been seen from the ship’s bridge. Our Zodiac buzzes hither and thither but we can’t spot him. It turns out that polar bears don’t actually wait for us to arrive with our cameras. Seriously? So, Christophe steers the zodiac around a rocky point and we go to the other side of the island that the bear was first spotted on. And, after a tense twenty minute wait (how’s that for a First World Problem?), above the cliff edge rises the snout of a polar bear. Lenses whip upwards. Some of us – like me who doesn’t bother with framing or composition – manage a quick snap before he – big enough to be a he – drops below the ridge again. There’s an audible sigh of disappointment (seriously).
So we track along in the same direction as we – well, Christophe – thinks the bear will go. He – the bear, not Christophe – soon rises above the ridge again. Almost as if he was showing off: his size, his bearing (‘scuse the pun), his wonderfully twitching snout. Then he disappears again. For a while.
A few more minutes of slow scouting northward and someone goes to shout. At the last moment they remember to follow the briefing instructions and stage-whisper instead: ‘bear!’ And there was another one, this time a younger bear definitely, but we can’t tell if was male or female. But we can tell is that s/he is nervous. For a start, s/he is running. Not flat out, but trotting with clear purpose. Christophe whispers: ‘might be another bear around’. And all of a sudden there, there is a bear. Another bear. The bigger bear. Who, strangely, doesn’t seem to be aware of the running bear. But the running bear doesn’t seem to know that. He keeps trotting along.
Until he swerves down the low rocky bank and leaps into the water.
Polar bears are strong, stalwart swimmers. We’d been told this many times during the Polar Bear Safety Briefing. By Christophe. Who certainly seems to know what he was talking about. We have also been warned that the safety of the bear is way more important than our holiday snaps.
So now, with a bear in the water, Christophe fingers his walkie-talkie and says in low voice and his sultry French accent: ‘Zodiac drivers, we have a bear in the water. A bear in the water. Back off now please.’ And the thirteen – yes thirteen – Zodiacs go into reverse gear and back away until we lose sight of both bears.
A quarter of an hour later we notice something stranded on the rocks in front of us. It looks so out of place even I notice it without the benefit of a gigantic lens. A carcass: a seal? A walrus? It was missing its skin so we can’t actually tell what it is and even Christophe is unable to say definitively. We sit and wait. Surely something that eats carcasses will soon how up. And it does. From the south comes a bear about the same size as the smaller bear we had last seen in the water. He comes to the edge of the small point to our port side, sniffs the air, enters the water and swims to the rocks the carcass is on, clambers out and clamps his massive jaw down on the carcass with relish.
After a few satisfying mouthfuls – with blood dripping from his jowls – the bear looks up from the carcass. He lifts his snout into the air and he sniffs. He mustn’t smell anything because he goes back to feeding. We stay for a good thirty minutes, watching or, like some of my fellow expeditioners snapping like papparazzi, as the bear alternatively feeds and sniffs, and sniffs and feeds.
And then Christophe fingers his walkie talkie and orders the troops to retreat. We are at our two hour expedition limit. ‘Back to the ship,’ he said, ‘back to the ship now, please.’ But two Zodiacs hang back watching the bear. ‘All Zodiacs back to the boat now please,’ says Christophe tersely. Only one of the zodiacs turn for the ship. Half a minute later he’s had enough. ‘Turn around now! I told you to turn around.’ Then, his fingers dropped from the radio’s button, and he mutters ‘Expeditions are not a democracy.’ And he’s right of course. Someone has to be in charge of a bunch of excited expeditioners in dangerous territories. There are, after all, polar bears.
For Svalbard Part Three: A Bit About Svalbard and the Global Seed Vault
Acknowledgements: I only had a phone not a kick-arse lens, so I can’t take credit for any of the photos on this page except the really bad ones. There was a specialist photography group onboard and I thank them (and anyone else aboard) for sharing their pics with the rest of us (and sorry, most of you didn’t provided names). And thanks to Adrian, the ship’s photographer.