Hopeful Excursion

In the Land of the Midnight (and anytime!) Sun

The goal for yesterday was to see some elusive-type critters….. whales, walruses, seals, polar bears (?), and unicorns.

What we saw were skunks.

Not the real kind, the ones that come into use when you get nothing, nada, none…….  aka……skunked.

To say that the weather has been with us would be a tremendous understatement, so we were hoping for at least a ‘sighting’ on our 4.5-hour maritime excursion to set the balance back a bit.

                     Nope.

                     But at least the weather was ‘acceptable’!

                     We embarked on a good size catamaran that held all 146 of us very comfortably. Plenty of deck space to handle the instances when (if) that ‘sighting’ was to occur. In the meantime, there were seats and tables inside for everyone to be comfortable at until “Thar she blows!” was hopefully to be heard from the lookout posted at the masthead (Oops! sorry…. thought we were on the Pequod!) Actually, he was just in the pilot house 😊

                     Well, that turned into a big negatory as all we saw were icebergs, glaciers, and birds. Now, in fairness, these were fun to see in their own right…… we don’t get many icebergs and glaciers in Texas or even New Jersey….. and for the birds, we NEVER get PUFFINS(!) there either!

                     So….. here are some representative cool pics of yesterday’s foray into the fjords and bays of Svalbard!

One of the good tricks of photography is when you are handed lousy weather and lighting conditions for acquiring good color renditions, then switch to Black & White and pretend you are Ansel Adams! It actually works! A few examples…….

Now for what you’ve all been waiting for…….. the Critter Pics!

Now what you’ve all been waiting for…… the cutest birds on the planet and the reason that thousands of people ‘flock’ (get it!?) to these northern parts…..

PUFFINS!!!

Now just a few more to wrap it up for this one…..