Today is my birthday- 78 and still counting, thank goodness. I realized I am actually cheating a bit as it is still June 21 in Seattle but maybe I can celebrate again tomorrow.

It is currently 37 degrees  and foggy. Off-ship operations are halted because of the visibility. We are near the uninhabited island of Edgeøya which is the third largest island in this archipelago (5,073 km2; 1,960 mi2 in area). The island is named after Thomas Edge (died 1624), an English merchant and whaler. It is seldom visited today and its eastern side is covered completely by an ice field. Edgeøya is the setting for the novel “The Solitude” of Thomas Cave (2007), by Georgina Harding.

We had breakfast with several members of the staff. The staff members are very good about mingling with the guests.  They are moving the ship westward to attempt to get out of the fog that currently surrounds us.

Because of the nature of changing weather conditions flexibility is the name of the game. Since we could not leave the ship this morning the expedition leader simply announced more lectures to keep us entertained. The first of the morning was to complete the whale lecture by Ella (the English lass who calls herself the Princess of Whales- get it?) that had been discontinued several days ago when a bear was sighted. The lecture room simply got abandoned mid-lecture! The speaker is not offended as she too left the lectern. Her talk on the different species of whales included many sound clips of their sounds which were surprisingly quite different depending on the species.

Next was a fascinating talk by the good looking (as noted by the ladies) Italian naturalist, Stefano Pozzi on what it was like living a full year in Longyearbyen where  he took  a one-year college course on tour guiding. He showed slides of the different activities they had to do during the four seasons. I was mostly enthralled about his comments about what it is like when there is absolutely no sunlight for months. You need headlamps whenever/wherever you go all day/night long! He said they would go skiing while wearing headlamps.  I cannot imagine how you adjust your body cycles under those conditions.

Around lunch time we broke out into brilliant sunshine and found ourselves off the shore of snow covered mountains and two totally immense, distinct glaciers, one with a vertical wall (Game of Thrones) of ice and the other with a gentle slope of ice into the water. I had never seen this before. It was Zodiac tour time! We were fortunate to again have Kasper, the Danish naturalist who is an expert on this area, as our Zodiac driver/guide. We headed toward the shoreline but before we got there we found ourselves facing another Zodiac occupied with fierce-looking men in Viking helmets. Kasper said that not all Vikings were fierce and nasty, so we ventured closer only to find that these were friendly Vikings who offered us cups of hot chocolate with an optional addition of scotch, aquavit or my choice-peppermint schnapps.

Gathering our drinks we moved on to the sightseeing along the sea ice and glaciers. Kasper explained what we were seeing and why it was what it was. The sea ice before us was rapidly melting and would be gone in a few weeks. The edge of the glacier was a huge wall of black, which turned out to be extremely fine ground rock, the texture of very fine sand or pumice. It is created by the movement of the glacier over time and ends up as silt in the bay.

We saw no animals during our Zodiac ride, but the scenery before us was stunning. Unfortunately an hour later we were transported back to the mother ship as other groups were waiting to do what we had just done. What started out as a bummer of a morning turned out to be a spectacular afternoon.

The five of us had been invited to join Matthias Breiter, the National Geographic photographer and bear expert, and his wife for a private dinner in the Chart Room. The 6th guest at our table was an 83 year old widower from NYC who had owned an umbrella manufacturing company. Needless to say we peppered Matthais with so many questions about his life and experiences the poor guy could hardly finish his meal. And because it was my birthday I, too, was serenaded by the staff and presented with a birthday cake which the table shared. It was a lovely dinner in all respects.

There was an after dinner viewing of the Emmy-nominated 2015 documentary “Polar Bear Summer” where Matthais Breiter was the photographer. It is definitely worth watching if you have access to it.

Thus ended  a marvelous 78th birthday. Hopefully there can be more to celebrate like this….on an international expedition somewhere!