Page 38 - 2003 SVALBARD, NORWAY

Fogbound In Svalbard
Today we awoke to a world outside our porthole that looked like

a bale of cotton. The fog was thick and it would not dissipate for
many hours. That seemed pretty obvious and even Ralph, our EL,

reported that we might as well relax after breakfast and figure out
what to do with ourselves because we seemed to be in some

pretty thick stuff.

We read a while and Kay worked on the pictures and then we

went to lunch which was also an interesting experience because
we ate with the ship’s doctor. He was enlightening regarding what

special training he had to have before signing on with Lindblad--a
week with the Coast Guard learning firefighting techniques and

personal survival. He also told us that Lindblad doesn’t want
surgeons, only internists & family practitioners. Why?

After lunch we read some more and then learned that we were
approaching a huge ice cap and glacier formation on Northeast

Land which would be explored by Zodiac cruising. The ice cap is
the second largest in the Northern Hemisphere after Greenland’s

and would take 20 hours to completely circle in the Endeavour.

Zodiac Ride with Bar Service

Our Zodiac ride was wonderful because the scenery was
spectacular with icebergs floating around us and the world looking

silver and gray with veins of blue in the glacier face. Something
completely new to us: waterfalls coming right out of the glacier
wall. Enormous amounts of water were pouring through round

holes in the ice, through slits in the face, and leaking out the
bottom at the tide line. We'd never seen anything like it before

and our Zodiac driver told us that just last week there were no
waterfalls there!