We had a more leisurely start to our day. It was a pleasure to sleep in just a tad. After all, we are on holiday. During breakfast we cruised slowly down the channel between Edgeøya and Barentsøya Islands towards our landing at Kapp Lee on Edgeøya. We weren’t scheduled to land until 10:00 so that meant we could linger over a second or in my case, a third cup of coffee.
The beach at Kapp Lee is well known as a favoured Walrus haul-out site but as we hit the beach we could see that there weren’t any toothy pinnipeds lounging about at water’s edge. Too bad, but we had seen many Walrus already and unknown to us this landing was to hold yet other wildlife wonders.
At 10:30 a group of ambitious hikers set off to climb to the very impressive cliff-tops of Kapp Lee.
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| Photo © Morten Hilmer |
The Expedition Team marked the preferred trail from the landing site and cautioned everyone of the necessity to stay strictly, exactly, precisely, absolutely-follow-in-one-another’s-footsteps on the flagged trail.
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| Photo © Morten Hilmer |
There was a very real danger of getting stuck in deep, sucking mud and to not be able to extricate oneself.
It happens every time we visit Kapp Lee. Some people just don’t seem to believe us until they are stuck in the mud up to their knees. We know from experience that there are several pairs of boots preserved forever under the mud. But today was different. Today was the first time that no one got stuck! This summer has been quite dry and while there were plenty of muddy areas, they were in general easy to avoid. To tell you the truth I was rather half hoping that someone would get stuck in the mud because those events are much more fun to write about. :)
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| Photo © Morten Hilmer |
Anyway, back to the hikers and the landing in general. There were Reindeer foraging widely over the grassy slopes of Kapp Lee. Just about everyone got close looks at the majestic Arctic ungulates. They were already sporting impressive racks still covered in a fine velvet.
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| Photo © Morten Hilmer |
Not far from the landing site we encountered a family of four Arctic Foxes. The young kits were particularly fun to watch as they cavorted with one another and gnawed on bones from a recent fresh kill.
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| Photo © Morten Hilmer |
The vixen and reynard also engaged in playful activity and occasionally lifted their tails to spray the area marking their territory. It was certainly one the best sightings of Arctic foxes possible.
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| Photo © Morten Hilmer |
By 14:00 everyone was back on Fram. We scheduled several lectures for the afternoon. There was ample time to attend a lecture or visit the gym, or luxuriate in the sauna, or jacuzzi.
At 21:45 we were all invited to the Observation Lounge where some of the ship’s officers and the Expedition Team modelled apparel from the gift shop.
