16 Jun 26 - From The Biggest To The Smallest Expedition Cruise Day 7 - A White Surprise On Jan Mayen Island

After landing on Jan Mayen Island, it was no surprise that I decided to visit the Little Auk colony, rather than go for a longer walk on the island where I wasn't likely to see much wildlife. After walking across a long ash field, I reached the tall Brielletarnet pinnacle.

The Brielletarnet pinnacle

There was a good view of the bay from the Brielletarnet pinnacle

Looking right, there was a long beach

Little Auk: There were Little Auks on the lower rocky slopes next to where the path reached the sea

I hadn't hurried to the Little Auk colony as I had been trying to get some photos on the way there. This worked out really well, as many of the passengers had already been and left. I had just arrived and was watching and starting to photograph the Little Auks, when there was a shout from Chris Collins 'there is a close Beluga Whale swimming left'. I spun around and the Beluga Whale was obvious about sixty metres offshore.

Beluga Whale: It really wasn't far off the beach

Beluga Whale: They are an unobtrusive Whale with a weak blow, as they surface with their heads just appearing above the water

Beluga Whale: After getting some air, the Beluga Whale quickly dipped its head back below the water

Beluga Whale: Looking down on the Beluga Whale meant that it was possible to easily follow it in the water

Beluga Whale: They have a large melon, obvious flippers, the dorsal fin is no more than a slight bump on the top of the body and a noticeably large tail

Once the Beluga Whale had swum past and out of sight, I switched back to photographing the Little Auks.

Little Auk: They watched from the rocky hillside completely unconcerned about our presence

Little Auk: This is the nominate alle subspecies which breeds from Baffin Island, Greenland, North Iceland, Jan Mayen Island, Svalbard to Novaya Zemlya

I was enjoying watching the Little Auks after photographing them, when Expedition guide Jess shouted 'the Beluga Whale is now heading right'. Turning round I saw it was the same distance off the shore. It was time for some more photos.

Beluga Whale: They look to be a long Whale, but in reality the males are only about five and a half metres long, with the females being about a metre shorter

After a final look at the Little Auks, it was time for the three-quarters of a mile walk back across the ash field.

Looking back across the ash field

Finally, I was back overlooking the landing site. However, I wasn't ready to head back to the Plancius yet, as there was one more site I wanted to visit.

Back at Puppebu Bay

The Plancius was now bathed in sunshine: This was a stark contrast to when we landed, when we could hardly see her in the mist

The yacht was moored in the Puppebu bay: Travelling in such a small yacht will be a very different experience to a small expedition ship like the Plancius

There was a memorial cross on the hillside close to our landing site in Puppebu Bay. It was only a few minutes' walk to get there. The memorial cross is to remember seven Dutch whalers who tried to overwinter in 1633 to protect their early whaling base, after whaling bases were destroyed in the previous winter by Basque whalers. They were found to have died when the whalers returned the following Spring, with scurvy being the suspected cause.

The memorial cross

A recent commemorative stone plaque

I had really enjoyed the time ashore on this remote Norwegian territory. It was finally time to head back to the Plancius and to recharge the fluid levels before we departed Jan Mayen Island. I was hoping we might get some more Cetaceans in the surrounding waters as we left. I didn't expect the views to be as good as they were.

16 Jun 26 - From The Biggest To The Smallest Expedition Cruise Day 7 - Jan Mayen Island

My 03:30 start to get on the bridge wing for the final approach to Jan Mayen Island had proved to be a good decision, when Maurice found our first Blue Whale of the trip. Additional bonuses for the early starters were five Humpback Whales, a Minke Whale, the first Beluga Whales (albeit I only saw the blows) and two Harbour Porpoises. I was ready when the call for breakfast was finally made, after I had been up for four hours.

Tribe 205 (after our cabin number) with the Pirate (Birgit): Myself, Luc, Kris, Birgit and Joris

After breakfast, it was back to the bridge wing to watch our final approach to the Norwegian Jan Mayen Island with some trepidation. Our Expedition Leader Jan had warned us in the briefings that landing on Jan Mayen Island was far from certain. There was only one approved landing spot on the island on the North Western side of the island and Jan had failed to land on the island on his visits over the previous five years. The seas were fairly calm as we approaching from the Southern end of the island, but we couldn't judge the seas on the far side of the island at this point.

The seas looked calm at the Southern end of Jan Mayen Island

Some of the local breeding Seabirds were on view as we approached the island.

Fulmar: We were seeing more of the blue morph Fulmars, but invariably the only ones I managed to get photos of were the paler individuals

Black Guillemot: We were now in range of the mandtii subspecies which breeds along the high Arctic coasts of East & West Greenland, Jan Mayen Island, Svalbard to North Siberia, North Alaska & North Labrador

Black Guillemot

Little Auk: This is the nominate alle subspecies which breeds from Baffin Island, Greenland, North Iceland, Jan Mayen Island, Svalbard to Novaya Zemlya

Little Auk: These were the first Little Auks of the trip. By the time I was flying out of Svalbard I had seen about seven and a half thousand

The sun tried to creep out from the clouds

To add to our uncertainty about the landing, we hit a large bank of fog on the North West side of Jan Mayen Island.

The fog only provided additional concerns about whether we be able to land: However, on a positive the seas were calm and there wasn't a strong wind blowing on the North West side of the island

Our final approach to Jan Mayen Island

We were still in the fog by the time we reached our anchorage at Puppebu. This is the only place that expedition ships are allowed to land passengers. Fortunately, there are no Polar Bears on Jan Mayen Island. If there had been Polar Bears on the island, then the Expedition team wouldn't have considered landing, due to the risk of a close encounter with a Polar Bear appearing out of the fog. Jan announced that the Expedition team can still operate in foggy conditions and the base commander was waiting for us on the beach. He confirmed he would go ashore with a couple of zodiacs to finalise our landing. Twenty minutes later, we heard the call to the zodiacs and we would have about five hours on Jan Mayen Island.

The Plancius was just visible in the fog

Jan Mayen Island is volcanic in origin: The combination of the volcanic origin, the isolation of the island and its high latitude means that there are few plants that have colonised the ash plain

The Norwegian military base commander and a couple of his came to meet us: There is a small military contingent based on Jan Mayen, along with a few meteorologists and a dirt runway which can take support landings with the ever versatile Hercules

There were about five small huts at Puppebu: This is an emergency site for the Norwegian base, if there is a disaster at their main and only base on the other side of the island. This is an essential consideration given that the island hosts the most Northerly active volcano

It will be tight in these huts in the event of an emergency, given there will already be stores etc in these huts and around twenty personnel on the island

This is one of the plants that is slowly colonising the ash field

Arctic Flowers

This is the remains of a historical hut next to the beach: There were strict rules about not disturbing or stepping on any historical wood or other objects on Jan Mayen island. This included only photographing the hut from a distance

Some of the small pieces of wood like this are also protected: It's not possible to easily determine the origin of pieces of wood like this

A protected piece of canvas: Again it is not possible to determine if this was brought to Jan Mayen Island by earlier visitors or whether it was thrown up by the sea and then blown inland

In addition to exploring some of the beach area, there were two main options when we were ashore. They were a three mile round trip to a Little Auk colony or a longer six mile hike along one of the main dirt tracks to stretch the legs. No prizes for which option I chose.

Initially, we all followed this track along the coast

The track went past this steep slope and rocky outcrop: It's no surprise the volcanic rock was heavily weathered given the extreme climate on Jan Mayen Island

There are little signs of life on the ash field despite it being forty years since the last eruption on the island

After three-quarters of a mile, we reached the turn off to the left to the Little Auk colony

The path to the Little Auk colony crosses the plain past this large steep hill

We were heading for the rocky Brielletarnet pinnacle

Glaucous Gull: There were a few pairs of Glaucous Gulls nesting at the very top of the rocky hillsides. None were close given how high the hills were

Little Auks: There were frequent high up flights of Little Auks arriving or departing from the colony

Explaining all the different colours on this hillside is beyond my O Level Geology certificate

The mist was still coming and going

Kris was one of my cabin mates

Chris Collins: Chris now owns Wildwings and he had booked about twenty bunks on the ship. While we were on Jan Mayen Island he was trying to finalise the Wildwings brochure before it was printed for the July bird fair. Fortunately, modern technology was allowing him to read the brochure, having previously downloaded it on the ship

The clouds parted to reveal the Beerenberg Volcano: The volcano is nearly seven and a half thousand feet high. It is still an active volcano and last erupted in 1970 and 1985, after being dormant for around one hundred and twenty years. The base commander said there was a team of mountaineers climbing the volcano on the day of our visit. Not something I would want to do given all the effort involved and no Birds to see there

A much older and more dormant volcano based upon the vegetation

There were a large number of Pine trees thrown up on the ash plain despite being a couple of hundred metres from the sea: It would be interesting to know if these were Scandinavian or North American in origin. They aren't local as there are no trees on Jan Mayen Island

I will cover the bonus surprise at the Little Auk colony in the next Blog Post.