Page 67 - 2003 SVALBARD, NORWAY

shining in the sun. The towers, turrets and spires, created by the

ice, wind and water, looked ready to greet “Sir Knights” of old with
banners streaming in the breeze and damsels leaning down to toss

scarves of cloud and flowers of ice in welcome.

BJORNSUNDET

After lunch (a Swedish smorgasbord), we cruised into Bjornsundet
(Bear Sound) to search for bears again and were rewarded when
we saw four bears off in the distance. There was a lone bear and a

sow with two cubs to lock in on with the binoculars. They did a lot
of pacing around and the female seemed to be having a little

disciplinary trouble with her two cubs since they didn’t appear to
want to follow her closely enough. She would get out ahead of

them and they would just sit together and watch her. She would
then turn back and walk towards them. Sometimes they would

reluctantly start out when they saw her coming back and at other
times she had to get right up to them before they moved again.
Perhaps they were fearful of the lone bear across the ice?

However, probably not, or they would have stayed very close to
their mother. Maybe, they were just adolescents getting defiant

and trying to assert some independence. She was still “working
with them” when we sailed away in search of bears closer to the

ship.

As we sailed on, we saw several walruses hauled out on floes and
bergie bits. Two of them were stretched out belly to belly sunning
in the golden light and could hardly be bothered to lift their heads

and display those wonderful canine tooth tusks (that is what the
tusks really are).