Blog van Dave Walsh

Titel: Blog van Dave Walsh

Hier onder een blog van Dave Walsh, hij is verantwoordelijk voor alle media
hier aanboord, hij beschrijft hier in onze ontmoeting met de ijsbeer
afgelopen zaterdag. Het is wel in het engels maar vond het een mooi stukje
dus wilde het graag delen.

Dave Walsh, polarbear encounter,

It's five minutes past midnight on board the Arctic Sunrise. The sun
never sets at this time of year; instead it casts long late shadows on
the ice, and turns the sea water and icebergs buttery yellows and
infinite blues.

Some of us should be asleep, but few of us are - we're pulled up beside
a stunning iceberg, which has become known as 'The Donut', thanks to the
circular hole formed by an exquisite archway of glacier ice.

I'm on the starboard bridge wing, looking at the Sunrise's shadow play
on the 'berg, then reflection of that shadow in the water. Out of the
corner of my eye I catch something yellow galloping along the pockmarked
sea ice that stretches from the iceberg to the nearby coastal cliffs.

"POLAR BEAR, POLAR BEAR" I shout into the bridge. The bridge erupts into
a frenzy of activity.

I stick my head back outside. The bear has stopped, maybe 50m off the
starboard bow.

Nanuk or Nanoq, the Inuit name for the polar bear or ice bear. Also
known as Ursus maritimus, the sea bear. In northwestern Greenland,
the Polar Inuit call the bear Pisugtooq; the great wanderer. To follow
a bear, it is said, is to really learn something. I like what Pisugtooq
means, but Nanuk rolls off my tongue a little easier.

Nanuk is sitting down, waving its head back and forth as it sniffs the
aroma of humans and cooking that's coming from the big green ship. Polar
bears are curious animals, and it's a fair guess that it has never laid
its brown eyes on a ship before - not many ships have ever reached these
waters. I don't know if it's a male or female. I'd hazard a guess of
male, but not from any solid evidence. Kieran forwarded me an new story
earlier about a Japanese zoo where keepers spent six months trying to
get two polar bears to mate, before discovering they were both female.

Out of the bear's line of sight, on the other side of the ship, we've a
boat in the water, with Bob, Sarah, Eric, Alun and Stephen on board.
They quickly choose to evacuate the boat, and get back on board the
Sunrise safely. Up on around the bridge, Nick is to my left, shooting
photographs on his telephoto lens. Stephen, still in his boat suit,
joins the others on the bow with his video camera.

The bear moves forward, wading knee deep through a meltpool. It strides
confidently up to the ship sniffing the air, and looking up at the
little people above. Its massive forelegs are awe inspiring, ending in
paws bigger than my head - these act as paddles, snowshoes, and
seal-killing tools, thanks to huge reddish brown claws on each foot.

Nanuk's coat glows golden yellow in the low sunlight. It's commonly
assumed that polar bears are as white as snow - not so. Instead, their
fur - each hair of which is hollow, for insulation, is creamy if not
yellow.

Now Nanuk is regarding the bow of the Arctic Sunrise with something more
than curiosity. The deck that people are standing on is 4m above the
ice, sloping outwards. Including the gunwale, the bear is looking up at
about 5m of steel, sloping out over its head. It can't be seriously
thinking of jumping onto the ship, can it? I imaginet he Arctic Sunrise
arriving into port, with a pair of cartoon scratch marks descending to
the waterline from an attempted ursine boarding.

Nanuk seems to blink, change its mind, sniffs around a bit. I'm standing
on the next deck up, so I'm close to 9m from the ice, or probably less
than 8 from the bear's head. I'm looking through my 400mm camera lens at
its muzzle, which is stained red, presumably from the blood of seals.
Nanuk looks back up the lens at me, the sunlight catching its eye as it
regards my clicking camera with cold curiosity. Even with that much
vertical height between myself and the bear, I am unnerved.

A sudden movement from from a crewmate below startles Nanuk, who spins
away, splashing back into the water. The minor panic subsides, and it
climbs on to the ice again. Then, showing only its right side, sits on
its haunches, giving the Arctic Sunrise a doleful over-the-shoulder
look. Then it stretches its back ramrod straight and aims its muzzle at
the blue sky above.

I almost expect the bear to start howling. Instead, it seems to have
turned itself into an olfactory antennae, getting its nose as high as
possible. It looks dumpy - plump around its nether regions, like a bear
wearing a bear suit to a fancy dress party. But Nanuk also looks
graceful, regal, and at ease in its domain, and now, with its snout in
the air, seems to have reached a kind of shamanic pose.

Nanuk's forepaws come down on the ice again, and it starts ambling away.
Without warning, it drops down on the snow, and spends the next two
minutes rolling around on its back like a playful dog on a lawn, kicking
its legs into the air, rubbing its fur onto the snow. Is it trying to
cool down after all the excitement or drying its fur? Is it declaring
its submission to the big green rainbow monster by proffering its furry
belly? Or is it simply having a good time and wants to show off to the
cameras?

After a few minutes of this, Nanuk sits up, looking a bit dazed and
selfconscious, before wandering off across the ice. We continue watching
through binoculars and telephoto lenses. A dark lump can been on the
ice, between the bear and the cliffs of Cape Clay. It seems to be a
ringed seal, pulled up on the ice.

Nanuk goes into stealth mode. We have problems telling the bear's pale
hump from the sunlit ice as it takes a winding route through the water
towards the seal. We blink, and the seal vanishes. Nanuk appears,
forepaws on the ice flow, sniffing the air, disappointed. Then it
wanders off, in search of new adventures, and a late supper.

The ship's engines start, and we leave. The is the bear's territory, and
we do not want to impose further.

-Dave

Footnote: This was the fifth of six polar bears we've seen since June
29th. The 1st was on the Arctic Sea ice, as written about by Melanie. We
later saw a mother and two cubs in the distance on Petermann Glacier.
Since the above encounter, Martin, Stefan and Geert saw a polar bear
from the helicopter, clambering about on one of the McGarry Islands.