This travel update is part three of our week in Longyearbyen, Norway. It covers July 28. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

July 28, 2023 – Friday: Our Fjord Cruise

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Patti copied the following information from the tour company’s website about this cruise:

Glacier Safari – Afternoon/Evening Cruise / Glaciarsafari – Svalbardcruise.com

4:30pm – 11:30pm (approximately 7 hours)

Take a Fjord-cruise to glaciers along the northern coastline of “Isfjorden.” Birds, seals and the start of Svalbard’s coalmining history at “Bohemanflya” are some of the things we might see on our way. Depending on the weather we explore our way towards the northern coastline and glacier fronts such as Nansen-, Bore-, Wahlenberg- or Svea Glaciers, closing up on one of them.

This is a unique opportunity to possibly encounter a glacier with massive pieces of ice breaking off from the glacier front. With vast opportunities to experience the arctic wildlife, keep your eyes open and look for whales, seals and a plethora of birds. And if we are lucky, a Polar Bear might be roaming around in these glacial habitats, or a massive walrus may be lazing on the shore.

Our guide/storyteller will talk about the history of Longyearbyen, glaciers, arctic wildlife, and possibly also tell a “polar tell tale” or two.

A warm meal is served in a refreshing glacial atmosphere.

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Yesterday we booked this boat cruise that starts at 4:30 PM this afternoon and we didn’t have too much planned before that so we had a slow morning this morning. At lunchtime we went down to the Coop grocery and I got some pizza and vegetables from the hot bar and Patti got a cinnamon roll. We stood at a counter at the front of the grocery store to eat and I watched people walk by. I have been impressed here with the age of some of the tourists. Some look like they are older than us and it’s inspiring to see them traveling. One older woman was using a walker and this older couple were both using canes.

Longyearbyen isn’t a huge global tourist location, it’s more for people who want a bit of adventure, and these older people still want some adventure. Hopefully Patti and I will be able to do this kind of traveling for many more years.

After lunch I went back home to work on my travelogues and Patti investigated some of the shops.

Around 4:15 PM we walked over to the bus stop where we would be picked up to go on our cruise. The bus took us the short distance down to the harbor where we boarded our stout ship, the Billefjord.

Our cruise took us out of the Adventfjorden where Longyearbyen is located and out into the larger Isfjorden which leads out to the Greenland Sea. I’ve marked our route in red on this map. You can see that once we got across the Isfjord we made two stops at inlets then retraced our route back to Longyearbyen.

Our guide for this cruise was Natalia, she’s from St. Petersburg, Russia and has been in Longyearbyen for two years. Here’s Patti with Natalia.

Soon after we left port the cook set up a BBQ grill on the back deck and before long dinner was ready.

It was a nice buffet with pork ribs, hot dogs, and salmon, rice, bread & butter, and vegetables. Some of the guys at the buffet in this picture are from the Czech Republic, we talked to one of them for a while which was interesting.

After dinner we went out on the foredeck and Natalia took our picture. It was about 40° F so we were dressed in our warm gear.

A little later we climbed the blue metal rungs to the top deck. Here’s Patti doing the climb. You have to be careful that your feet don’t slip off the rungs.

At our first stop we saw a group of walrus lying on a beach.

That was fun. We stayed there for about 15 minutes and I watched them move around a bit. It looked like one of them was rearing back with his tusks occasionally.

Then the captain took us around a headland to the terminus of the glacier there. That was pretty cool, I took a lot of pictures because I’d never been up close to a glacier like this before.

We passed by this blue-colored iceberg.

Why is glacier ice blue?

“Glacier ice is blue because the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by ice and the blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path light travels in ice, the more blue it appears.”

The sun was about the same distance above the horizon as it always is here at this time of year.

As we got closer to the glacier we got into its ice field. There were lots of small pieces of ice floating in the water that didn’t seem to worry the captain.

I adjusted the exposure time on my phone’s camera so I could capture the blue color of the vertical edge of the glacier.

One of the crewmen used this plastic milk crate to bring in some small pieces of glacier ice so we could have it with our whiskey.

And he put it in a metal bucket.

Natalia told me they look for small pieces of ice that are very clear. She said the floating ice here is probably about 5,000 years old.

The bubbles inside the ice were very pretty, and I guess they contain atmosphere from 5,000 years ago.

Here’s my whiskey with glacier ice, held in my gloved hand.

Patti had a bit of orange soda with hers.

Natalia took our picture with the glacier.

So, this was a very cool (pun intended) cruise. One of my bucket list items was to see glaciers and the experience did live up to the hype.

After the glacier experience the captain turned the bow back towards Longyearbyen and it took about two hours to steam back across the Isfjord to the harbor. We debarked the boat, boarded the bus, and were dropped off across the street from our apartment a little after 11PM. The sun was still up, as it always is here in July.

Future Plans

• We are currently staying at an Arbnb in Longyearbyen.
• August 2: We fly SAS Airlines from Longyearbyen to Tromsø.
• August 2 – 10: We reserved an Airbnb in Tomsø.
• After Tromsø, we may head south down the coast of Norway, making reservations as we travel along.
• October 17 – December 3: No plans yet.
• December 3 – 9: I will be participating in research in Durham, North Carolina, at the Med-El facilities there. Med-El is the company that made my Cochlear Implant. I’ll spend 9am to 4pm for five days being a lab rat. They say they will test various new programming options for my cochlear implant with the goal of improving their systems. It should be fun. I’m looking forward to it.
• December 9: We drive to Bradenton, Florida
• December 9 – 31: We reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida, where we stayed last year for two months (November and December). We look forward to singing in the Christmas Choir again.

2024

• January through April: We plan to travel through Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama. We don’t have reservations yet.
• May and June: We reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida. We’ll spend these two months getting our yearly medical stuff done and visiting with family and friends. May and June are “off-season” in the Sarasota / Bradenton area, and the rate is $56 per night for these 61 days, which is pretty good for a place like this in this location. In season, January through March, the price doubles.
• After June 30, we have no plans, but we are entertaining options about where to travel next summer. Maybe Germany/Austria/Switzerland.