Tuesday, October 28, 2008

GORGEOUS ICEBERGS


This massive iceberg is typical of those that break off ice shelves and float around in the currents for several years, breaking up as time passes. This one is most likely from Greenland.
Below, these smaller pieces called bergy bits are ever present and choke some channels. We can safely navigate between the smaller ones while in kayaks. We generally give them a wide berth while attempting to envision the amount of ice underwater. Should one break apart we want to be out of range as it rebalances.

Melting glacier face in the foggy mist one morning as we climbed nearby.

Below, a rare sighting of an immature kittiwake...they lose all this beautiful plumage at maturity, looking like an ordinary gull with wing tips dipped in ink.
A zodiac provides scale in this immense landscape.
Why we don't go into the glacier's caves!

Or anywhere closer, for that matter.

Just another gorgeous ice berg on an otherwise ordinary day.
Well fed bearded seal. They live on their fat stores through the winter, looking leaner by spring.

Death of a glacier. The ice surrounding the glacier has all melted off. This glacier is shrinking from the sides inward. Eventually it will look smaller and narrower. The debris locked inside will be more visible as the ice around it melts.



It will shrink back from the water's edge.

Until it looks like this.

Not too far distant all the glaciers in Greenland will have receded.
This bear is most likely overheated from swimming so far to get to the ice. It may or may not have had a meal. But once it's caught up to the ice a meal will never be too far away. This is a cooling off method. A snooze is always in order.

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