{"id":6228,"date":"2009-07-12T08:22:12","date_gmt":"2009-07-12T13:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/magdalena-fjord-svalbard\/"},"modified":"2009-07-12T08:22:12","modified_gmt":"2009-07-12T13:22:12","slug":"magdalena-fjord-svalbard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/magdalena-fjord-svalbard\/","title":{"rendered":"Magdalena Fjord, Svalbard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-438\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-438.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Magdalena Fjord is another magical anchorage. We are surrounded with glaciers, secure behind a sand spit from all but easterly (off the glacier) winds. Ice can be a problem, but we are fortunate in low densities right now. With perfect weather we decide to make this an official rest stop. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"408\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-312\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-312.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>These two hardy gentlemen represent the Sysselman&#8217;s office for two months each summer. Rolph is a hunting instructor during the rest of the year and Ole is a police officer in Bergan. They spend the summer at their isolated cabin. Rolph and Ole joined us for dinner, but declined our invitation for a hot shower having just bathed in a meltwater stream (32F\/0C).<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-150\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-150.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are thousands of sea birds here. These gulls are feeding on fish at the glacier face.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-402\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-402.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been on polar bear alert during our stay in Svalbard. Everyone here takes this very seriously. Ole carries a .457 Magnum pistol, 4mm flash bang flares, and on hikes, a 30-06 rifle. Polar bears are smart, carefully stalk their prey, and will even disguise their black noses with snow when hunting seals. We wondered if this was a polar bear disguised as a block of ice.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"576\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-388\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-388.jpg\" width=\"511\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Arctic terns are amazing flyers. They travel from the Arctic summer south to the Antarctic for the southern hemisphere warm season. Watching them pilot themselves is a treat; in particular the way they pitch up, stop, and hover hummingbird-style.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-394\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-394.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We probably shot 1000 frames trying to capture these shots, and got just two out of the entire batch.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"410\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-39\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-39.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The beach is gently sloping sand, easy for dinghy landing, with a lack of cover for anything wanting to surprise us (think stalking polar bear) which is good. Actually they haven&#8217;t seen a bear here all summer, but spotted one in the next fjord over.  We did see a reindeer through the binoculars grazing on the mountains between glaciers and foxes looking for bird eggs.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-317-1\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-317-1.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll close with series of photos taking during dinner with our two new friends from the Sysselman&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-315-1\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-315-1.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-311-1\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-311-1.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-202-2\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-202-2.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"384\" alt=\"Magdelena-Svalbard-308-1\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/magdelena-svalbard-308-1.jpg\" width=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\">\n<p align=\"center\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Magdalena Fjord is another magical anchorage. We are surrounded with glaciers, secure behind a sand spit from all but easterly <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/magdalena-fjord-svalbard\/\">&#8230;Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}