Svalbard - Part One
S V A L B A R D
Almost two years in the making, earlier this summer I was lucky enough to join an expedition to Svalbard; an archipelago in the high Arctic, sat between the northernmost Norwegian mainland and the North Pole. Led again by great wildlife photographer and good mate, Andy Rouse and in conjunction with Polar Quest and their own incredible guides (more on all these guys in my next blog!). On the 5th of July, myself and 11 other passengers were finally about to set sail on a small icebreaker, the MS Stockholm, for 10 days of adventure and, hopefully, incredible wildlife.
I knew from my experiences in India & Africa, that although we had the best guides and the best ship, every trip comes with that feeling of heading into the unknown and with the added anticipation of what you might be lucky enough to see (if you saw anything at all!). This was to be my first trip to a polar environment and I literally had no idea what to expect.
The next 10 days would turn out to be life-affirming in so many ways - we definitely saw a whole host of amazing wildlife but, like never before, being surrounded by the environment was the true heart of the trip, for me. An ever-changing, dynamic habitat, uninhabited by humans - at times, breathtakingly beautiful but simultaneously harsh, bleak and unforgiving.
Travelling as far north as 81 degrees in summer, also meant 24 hour daylight - an experience in itself! Whilst the sun does arc through the sky a bit, it’s ever-present at this time of year. Being woken from our beds at 3am on the first ‘night’, to the call of “Humpback whales!”, and stumbling, bleary-eyed onto the deck in stunning, soft daylight, was something definitely new to me!
This will be the first part of, at least, two blogs, so it’s time to let the pictures do the talking, for now! Below you’ll find some highlights from the first few days of the trip and I’m even going to start with a picture of me, for a change - thanks to Andy Rouse for taking this one!
(Images best viewed LARGE!)
Finally, if you’ve come to this blog for Polar bears, you’ll notice there are none in the gallery above and that’s because we didn’t see any for the first four days! Needless to say, our guides worked tirelessly throughout the trip, sometimes spending several hours in the ship’s crow’s nest with binoculars, scanning the horizon for tiny beige blobs in an expanse of white sea ice (imagine how cold that is in the arctic!). Those of you who follow my daily updates on my Instagram page will know that the bears did, eventually, turn up and it was very special when they did!
The final image shows our anchor point for the third night. The next day would turn out to be a memorable one.
Check back later in the week for that and much more...