June 23 - July 7, 2008
Wednesday, July 2
At one o’clock in the morning we finally saw our first polar bear, actually spotted by a couple of the catering staff who were on the bridge! It was a male and close to the ship. The ship was stopped and as everyone watched the bear slowly ambled away. As it was crossing a pressure ridge, maybe 150 meters away, it paused, waited briefly, and then suddenly broke through the crust and immediately hauled out a seal! Film crews have tried to capture this for years without success, and there the whole drama unfolded right in front of everyone. As it began to drag the seal we followed in the icebreaker, but without overly distressing it, and after a couple of hundred meters it just stopped and settled down to eat.
During the night we reached our parking spot in the ice not far from Cape Norway, and a little later at six o’clock in the morning a mother polar bear with two young cubs came to the ship and the cubs were suckling just beside the bow. Later she wandered off, but not in a hurry, and settled down about half a kilometer from the ship.
An excerpt from the Expedition Leaders report.