Last Updated on May 2, 2023 by PowersToTravel
Back to “Two Weeks in Norway – ATV Safari and Better Moments – Day 16”
Our destination today, on a ten hour small boat trip, is Nye-Alesund, home of the northernmost post office in the world, at 78 degrees north latitude. (Our chosen operator was Spitzbergen Guide Service, which seems to no longer be in business due to COVID). We would be heading directly north from Longyearbyen, first crossing huge Isfjorden which dominates the area. In fact, everywhere we had been until now was basically Isfjorden and Billefjord. Now we would head up the narrow sea Forlandsundet, which separates the major landmass from the Prins Karl Forland island.
We started out with glorious blue skies. With the blue skies playing peek-a-boo with us since our arrival four days ago, this day looked to be our best yet.
We saw beluga whales and a blue whale, right off the bat.
The Blue Whale is a bit blurry and I certainly wasn’t responsible for his species identification. I could tell he wasn’t a minke or a fin whale, lacking the fin, but besides that, he just looked like a very big whale.
We loitered at the walrus haul-out area. Somehow several people were actually on land there, getting very intimate pictures of the huge animals.
Our boat came as close to shore as possible, and I did have an ultra-zoom lens. I’m thinking my pictures were probably as good as those of the on-shore people, considering the walruses were not motivated to get up.
In addition, as a boat passenger I got a close-up view of the walruses in the water. This pair stopped by to say hello.
I got a picture of a duck. Still looking for his name. He didn’t announce it to me. Ah-ha! He appears to not be a duck, but be a Black Guillemot. He was clearly successful in his first flight from the cliff, escaping the foxes below.
We reached Nye-Alesund in time for lunch on board, and then we strolled the town.
There were two small cruise ships in town, so our group of twelve from Longyearbyen disappeared in the crowds of red-jacketed expedition cruisers. Of course, Greg could never disappear, wearing his Dr. Pepper jacket as he does!
We bought a post card to send from the northernmost post office in the world, and headed back to our ship.
Even in the harbor, the wildlife viewing didn’t stop, as we saw a minke whale.
On the return trip we saw less wildlife and concentrated on the glaciers instead. Obviously that is not us in the sailboat.
There is no possible way I could include all the ice and iceberg pictures I took on the return trip.
As a final good-by, nature gave us a send-off:
Day 18 – Long Travel Home
It would be an early start for us the next morning, with a 4:45am alarm for a 7:30 flight. We flew this time directly from Longyearbyen to Oslo. We picked up a flight from Oslo to Reykjavik to Boston to get home. It was quite a shock to the system to be in Svalbard one day, and suddenly back in Newport, Rhode Island.
Rhode Island is quite a different island…
