Category: Islands of the North Atlantic
-
Short and late entry
Got to Tromsø OK. Car hired OK. Found apartment OK. Took quite a while to work the digital locks to get in, in the rain. Part of the problem was poor instructions had us trying the wrong door. Weird loft bedrooms with beds wedged into the slope of the roof, cramping the wall-side sleeper. Everyone…
-
Midnight sun
Longyearbyen is an interesting place! Small, to be sure, but not small like a village. Feels like a mining town. Streets are dusty and dry like a desert town. Every house and hut has a couple of skidoos out the front, many covered. Some sitting on crates. Down towards the shore there was a skidoo…
-
Svalbard placeholder
Yesterday was as close to a lay day as we’ve had so far. Mostly poking around the local gear shops, worrying if we have the right jackets and trousers. Met some of the folk at the Wildphoto gallery and confirmed departure plans. Met the other couple on our expedition who are staying at our hotel.…
-
Boarding day
Breakfast and pack-up were fairly leisurely, aiming for a 10:30 check-out, then a taxi ride (for our luggage at least) down to the Wildphoto gallery, where it would spend the day. Unfortunately the first taxi was half an hour away, so we opted to carry/trundle our luggage the few hundred meters down the hill ourselves.…
-
Away on the billowy ocean
(written on 14th August) The plan is to steam hard north for a day or so, to make it to the pack ice. Yay! Last night we steamed up the west coast while we slept, inside the protection of Prins Karls Forland: nice and calm and quite flat. We woke to sirens at about three,…
-
There’s a bear out there
(written on 16th August) We were in the ice by about three this morning, but it was foggy, and no-one was making a fuss, so I stayed in bed for a couple of hours more. Got up a bit after five, and there was quite a bit of ice, and good visibility. Rugged up and…
-
Midnight Bears, 3AM bear and seven islands passage
(written 17 August) Martin woke us around midnight to say that the bears had come back to near the boat. Got back into all of the thermal gear and headed out to have a look. At first it seemed to just be two of the cubs having another go at the remains, some way off.…
-
Birthday cake
(from the 18th, of course) The day really didn’t start very well. I had a migraine that had come on around three AM, and the weather was bleak and the water lumpy and uncomfortable. Cath found me some aspirins, which I took, and then tried a cup of coffee. That turned out to be a…
-
Bird cliffs
(original from 19 August) By morning we were in calm waters, but the skies were leaden and there was light rain. Still, that was no impediment to a zodiac outing to see the bird cliffs, straight after breakfast (9:30). Got rugged up in all of the wet-weather gear, and stashed the cameras in the Yeti…
-
Walrus hunt
(from 20 August) We woke for breakfast to discover that we had parked quite close to a haul-out of upwards of fifty walruses. It was cold and misty, but not raining, and the water was calm. No wind to speak of. After breakfast the mist had started to lift, and we boarded the zodiacs to…