We awoke to another sunny day with a morning temperature of 38 degrees. It is expected to get to around a high of 42 degrees. We traveled around the southern tip of Spitsbergen during the night and entered Storfjorden, the body of water that lies East of Spitsbergen. Our destination is the island of Edgeoya. It is much smaller than Spitsbergen and is uninhabited. The morning activity will be a series of hikes in the Arctic tundra located here. There are three hiking options offered: long, with an expected distance of about 3 miles; medium with an expected distance of 1.5 to 2 miles and short with a distance of 0.5 miles. Yvonne and I decided that medium would be the best for us as we did not know what to expect. Steve, Julie and Zoe were going on the longer hike.

We modified our clothing option from yesterday when we found we were too hot. Today we only wore puffy vests and raincoats. I chose to not wear rain pants as the seas are calm and there has been no spraying when riding in the Zodiacs. I even wore a baseball hat rather than the wool hat worn yesterday. We did wear our boots as they said the trails were boggy and occasionally wet. That turned out to be the most important item of clothing.

Our group of 20 was led by Maya, an undersea specialist from California. She did have the requisite high-powered rifle rifle on her shoulder. The hike indeed was very boggy. The ground is spongy with patches of watery marsh where our feet sunk 3-4 inches in the soft cushiony soil.  This is Arctic tundra. There are no trees and no vegetation other than mosses, lichens and a few tiny flowers. Rocks and boulders completed the landscape.

The only major animals we saw were several reindeer, which were easy to spot today as their coats are still winter white. The deer turn brown as summer progresses, camouflaging at its best.  In the “I did not know that” department: male reindeer get their antlers earlier than females but also lose them earlier(December) than the female who uses them as a defense (don’t bother me) mechanism as she is pregnant during that time. The inference of this is that Santa’s reindeer and Rudolph were females, not males!

We did see several different species of local birds as we walked the area. Not being birders I had no notion of what I was seeing but the guides were great in identifying and telling us about them. The nature of the landscape: flat with flat-topped mountains indicated the area was formed by glaciers eons ago. At one time this whole area was under water. There is a deathly silence here as there are no vehicles, no airplanes and no humans; only peace and solitude. There is actually only one song bird in the Arctic.

Two hours and 8,000 steps (more than the 1.5-2 miles we had expected) later we were back at the ship for lunch. The ship immediately started moving to another location for a late afternoon excursion.

While in transit one of the naturalists, Jamie, who was a self-nominated “bird nerd” gave a short presentation on sea birds which Steve and I attended as our wives rested(I.e. napped). There are over 10,000 bird species in the world of which only 300 plus are sea birds, which seems somewhat surprising and out of proportion, as water covers 70 percent of the planet’s surface. He gave us some surprising facts about the dominant sea bird groupings along with great pictures. I found it interesting.

The final ship destination and excursion for the day turned out to be a colony of walruses who inhabit this area. To avoid stressing them we were sent out in smaller 50 person groupings and limited to a 45 minute visit on the beach to observe these mammals. It was still sunny but because it was later in the day I wore a bit more clothing to compensate for the lower temperatures. Yvonne had developed the start of a blister from the morning walk and chose to stay on-board for this excursion. The onboard doctor(normally an ER physician from Reno) made a “room call” and gave her some bandages to prevent further damage to her heels.

The ship staff went through great precautions to not stress the walruses. Only 50 people at a time were on the beach. Also we landed quite a way away from the resting (actually mostly sleeping) animals and we were asked to not talk once we got closer to them so as to not disturb them. The naturalists did brief us before about the habits of the animals. The walrus feed on mollusks that they stir up from the sea bottom by blowing air through their mouth to disturb the sand. Their right flipper is larger than the left and it is used to help disturb/shovel the sea bottom. Their eye sight is not good but their whiskers are fantastic sensing devices. Walruses eat 75 kg of food a day (doing it in a couple of hours) then spend the rest of the day sleeping on the beach, digesting the food. They “suck” the food from the shells. Scientists were surprised to learn that they are capable of eating without getting any shell remnants in their stomach.

The walruses on the beach here are all males. The females and babies “live” elsewhere. We proceeded to watch about two dozen walruses sleeping!  Occasionally one would raise his head for a short time, then quickly return to a prone sleeping position. Luckily there was one entertaining animal who rolled onto his back, used his flippers to stretch his head and stomach, and other animated antics. Other than that it was a bit like watching grass growing! Trivia for the day: the plural of walrus is walrus. Also there is no term for a group of walrus, unlike a herd of elephants or a covey of ducks, etc.

About 45 minutes after landing we were directed back to the boats as another group would come from the ship for their viewing. After the busy morning trek this was an easy way to finish up the day.

There was an evening daily briefing at 6:45 with more hot hors d’oeuvres and drinks followed by our executive Swedish chef who came to the group meeting to tell us about her desire to providing sustainable food dishes and the menu for the evening dinner. Needless to say she received a resounding welcome from all of us.

It was a beautiful evening so we retired to the Observation Lounge on the upper deck for some games and picture taking as we slowly sailed along the coast.