Famously there are estimated to be more polar bears than people across Svalbard and the Barents Sea.
Even with approximately 3,000 of them out there it was still exciting to see this huge, wild, powerful animal in its natural habitat. They are genuinely dangerous and indeed while we were doing our circumnavigation there was an attack on a crew from one of the cruise ships we encountered.
Part of the problem is that during summer they can be short of food as they hunt seals over the pack ice. Fortunately the one above was clearly doing ok.
Even so we remained quite a way offshore, following the strict regulations Norway has in place. In Greenland where we barely saw another boat it would make less of an impact if we got close. In Svalbard with the constant stream of boats it could change the animals behaviour and so distances had to be much greater (though I couldn't help but note that other boats did indeed get a lot closer).
Fortunately I had brought my 70 -300mm lens for just such occasions:
In total 4 polar bears were sighted though I only saw 3 of them as one was spotted in the early hours at a time when I wasn't feeling at all well and from the cries on deck I could tell it was stationary and a long way away.
The other times we got a good view of the bear eating, swimming, walking and being dived by angry birds (not the game):
Every time we went ashore we had to stay in a close group around who ever had the gun.
It was clearly not a drill.
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