Svalbard Cruise

I got back from my vacation late Sunday afternoon. Here is a quick summary.

• I booked the daytime flight to London Heathrow (LHR) because that would give me a nice relaxing hotel night at an airport hotel before a late morning flight to Oslo. Alas, there was a mechanical problem with the plane and, by the time, it was fixed, we ran into the LHR curfew times. So it ended up being a redeye after all. The most stressful aspect was that my bag was originally checked just to LHR because of the overnight layover. I tried to get it changed to connect to Oslo. The desk clerks at the United Club were trying to be helpful but it was not clear whether or not they knew how to do this. When I got to LHR, I checked with the SAS desk, who said my bag would be transferred, but it did not show up at Oslo. So I had to file a missing baggage report and the desk clerks there told me it had only ever been checked to LHR. At any rate, this obviously caused some stress, but the bag did make it to me the next day and I was able to get to Longyearbyen with all my warm clothes.
  
  
• “Longyearbyen, where one earth is that?” I hear you ask. It’s the capital and largest town of the Svalbard archipelago (also known as Spitsbergen. It’s complicated.) This is an Arctic territory that is controlled by Norway, but still counts as an international flight from Oslo. It is somewhere I’d wanted to go for a long time. Why? Well, my friend, Guy, says there are two types of people in the world. One type, almost certainly the majority, look at a map and are attracted to places with names like “Paradise Bay.” The others (and I count myself amongst them) find ourselves drawn to places with names like “Point Despair” and “Cape Desperation.”
  
  
• Also, I like bears. And polar bears are at the very top of my animal hierarchy. However, I did some research and there are only abut 300 polar bears in Svalbard, most of them in the eastern region. You sometimes see a claim of 3000, but that is actually a figure for the entire Barents Sea region, with the overwhelming majority being in Russia. That didn’t stop me from writing this little ditty (to an obvious tune):
  
  All I want is a polar bear
  Walking out in the Arctic air
  I know there’s some out there
  Oh, wouldn’t they be loverly.
  
  
• But, really, the trip came about because I had booked a cruise from Argentina to Lisbon back in 2020. And, well, you know all about 2020. So I booked a cruise for April 2023 from Panama to Barbados. And that got canceled because Hurtigruten wanted to use the ship for another voyage. They gave me a nice bonus for choosing travel credit instead of a refund, and, well, I had always wanted to go to Svalbard, so why not?
  
  
• Even though I did get my bag, the chaos continued a bit. We had a charter flight (on Wideroe, an airline I admit to having never heard of before) from Oslo to Longyearbyen. We got to the airport in 4 buses and had to stand around for an hour waiting to check in because they couldn’t find the manifest. There wa much grumbling, but it all worked out and we got a tour of the town, including time to shop in town, a visit to Camp Barentz where we had a talk about polar bear safety and got to play with sled dogs, and spent some time at the museum, as well as having lunch. Finally, we boarded the MS Fram. I had booked an inside cabin, but got upgraded to an outside one, which was quite nice. We picked up our expedition jackets. Then we had a safety briefing, which included a demo of how to put on a survival suit, as well as a muster drill. That was followed by dinner and an introduction to the captain and crew of the ship. I pretty much collapsed as I’d had so little sleep for the previous two nights.
  
  
• We learned that we’d be unable to circumnavigate Svalbard, due to heavy pack ice. Out next stop was Ny-Alesund, which is populated by researchers and has a statue of Roald Amundsen, whose airship expedition to the north pole left from there. (You can see the mast it took off from, too.) The next day we went on to the ice edge, which was really interesting, crossing 80 degrees north latitude on the way. (This is the furthest north I’ve ever been.)
  
  
• Turning back south, we stopped at a a number of sites, along several fjords, We had a mixture of landings and zodiac cruises. The wildlife was less abundant than I’d hoped for. We did not see any polar bears. We could glimpse a couple of walruses, but from too far away to really identify them. There were a few beluga whales, but, again, not really easy to distinguish their white backs from bits of ice. We did see one seal and a lot of birds, however.
  
  
• Most of the time, I used my camera, vs. my cell phone because it is easier to work with gloves. Also, I was afraid of dropping my phone in the water. I need to go through photos, still. Here are just a couple of scenery pictures (taken with the phone), which was stunning and, frankly, the dramatic landscape was (in my opinion) the real reason to take this trip.
  
  

Aerial photo of the approach to Svalbard:




Polar bear warning sign. We always had expedition team members with rifles with us when we were on land outside the limits of Longyearbyen and Ny-Alesund:



Pack ice:




Van Mijenfjorden:



Mnordanshjoldbreen (probably misspelled):



A sunny afternoon, taken from my cabin:




Back Home: There was somewhat less drama getting home. The charter flight was on Amelia Air. We did have some chaos getting on the buses to the hotel in Oslo overnight, with a lot of confusion about where we were supposed to go. But we got settled and getting to back to the airport in the morning went more smoothly.

I had no issues getting home from Oslo (again, via LHR). I will note that darkness is pretty weird after spending several days in the Arctic. Anyway, I’ve had enough stuff to keep me occupied. I had a dentist appointment on Tuesday, Book Club on Wednesday, and crafts group this afternoon. I still have a ton of chores to do, though I have managed to unpack and do some of my laundry. But the Gentleman With Whom I Am Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling will be here next week, so house cleaning is the major priority.