Monday 18th June 2018
Woken at 2:00am or thereabouts to see a female bear and two cubs feeding and settling in. They were a VERY long way away, and this shot is through the powerful binoculars by putting the iPhone camera lens against the binoculars. The mother bear had dug a hole in the snow, then laid back to allow her cubs to feed. Amazing to be able to show you this – I hope you can make it out.
We all went back to bed around 4am, then I rose again at 7am, breakfast at 8:00am and part way through breakfast we got the call to get ready for a zodiac launch to follow the bears.
We followed this little family along the coastline for several kms. The mother appeared unbothered by our presence. Aware, but unthreatened.
Here’s a video taken with my Canon DSLR. Sorry about the wobbles, it’d be better if I had taken my tripod into the zodiac!!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–sPfC71AtM[/embedyt]
Returned at 12:45pm a bit cold but elated at what we had seen.
Big warming lunch of pasta carbonara followed by a nap as the ship moved to a new location. Nozomi was up high in the tower and scanning for bears, or anything as we moved through the passages and then found a number on some packed sea ice. Morten counted 14 bears though his 15x67mm binoculars, I could see four. Another mother with twin cubs, plus some solitary animals. They never came closer, so we spent the afternoon watching birds and admiring the lovely clear blue skies and enormous terrain we were in.
I’ve figured that the sun is most likely due north at midnight and due south at midday. It’s currently very bright shining through the portholes in the cabin. Usually we shut the covers and it keeps out most of the light, enough to make sleeping easier.