Raudfjorden

It was even calmer today than it had been over the last couple of days and we had more cloud which seemed to make it even warmer. Not what we'd come to expect for the Arctic.

This is Raudfjorden and is thought of as Svalbard's mos beautiful fjord.

We were given the opportunity to go for a slightly longer walk along a spit of land - Bruceneset. One of the extra shots is of a grave with a cross. We also got our first glimpse of a hairy lousewort! It may not have been a fluffy white thing but it's a native plant of Svalbard.

In the afternoon we ended up at Smeerenburgfjorden, which is Spitsbergen's westernmost fjord complex. We landed on a sandy spit on the southeast corner of the island of Amsterdamoya. This was preiviously home of the town of Smeerenburg which translates into 'blubber town'. There aren't many remains of the former whaling heyday.apart from a few graves and evidence of blubber ovens.

But we hadn't come here for this, we were here for the walrus! About 12-15 of them were hauled up on the edge of the beach just behaving like, well, walrus. Lying around, smelling badly and doing very little but they were magnificent creatures and enormous in size.