ARCTIC

SVALBARD PHOTO TOUR

We’ve arrived in Longyearben on Svalbard. This island which is about the size of Ireland and at latitude 78°N, is only 1338km from the North Pole ! We are here to photograph polarbears.

DAY 1 : ARRIVAL

There is so much I would like to tell, it feels like my brain is filled with champagne, all bubbly and about to overflow ! We’ve only been here a few hours and already so many impressions ! First the flight here, it was bright and sunny when we got close to Svalbard and we had great visibility. Below us an island full of snow and ice, glaciers, ragged mountain peaks, ridges, fjords, it’s almost like flying over the Namibian sand dunes, but in white this time.

 

With the local bus called Flybussen ( for NOK 75 each), we got to our hotel which is at the end of town, a little uphill. Town may be a big word for this place…it is the only town and capital of Svalbard, but it’s nothing much. One paved road leading into town and then up the hill, beside it a few dirt roads, leading to the brown, yellow, blue and red houses which are dotted along the slope like colourful little cubes against the still mostly white background. There’s a church, a post office, a few shops and hotels, that’s it. Oh well, I must mention the snow scooters, there are so many standing around here, there are probably more of them than there are inhabitants.

I believe what I dislike most is the fact that my favourite colour green is missing : there are no trees here, no gardens, no flowers, just a world in brown and grey. Good for us the sun is shining which makes it look slightly better. The sun will keep shining anyway, it doesn’t set from April 19^th till August 23^rd. Boy, imagine living here in winter when she doesn’t rise from October 28^th till February 4^th, wah ! How do you get through that without getting depressive or becoming an alcoholic ! No worries for us, we are travelling in the sunny season.

We check in to the hotel for one night. The Spitzbergen Hotel, a bit old worldly but comfortable, good beds, good food and friendly staff. We head to the lounge for free coffee and waffles. I make a great first impression when making my first ever waffle: I put in too much of the liquid dough, close it and during the heating it starts to overflow, dribbling down from all sides, all the Norwegian guest watching. A friendly lady comes to my help as I desperately try to clean the machine and wipe off most of the sticky mess which is dribbling down. The waffle is gigantic and looks awful, but to my surprise tastes rather good. As Jürg wants a second one, the whole lounge watches as I approach the machine again. I’ve learnt you guys, this one turns out perfect, nothing to laugh about !

We head into town, try to makes photos in which the town looks good, which is really hard because it honestly doesn’t. We even go down to the water’s edge, there are a few icebergs, (no just big chunks of ice), swimming round right in front of town, we must photograph them. We will probably see many more and much bigger ones, but the first one is always special. It is about 1°C but colder than expected, we need our beanie and gloves and are thankful for our warm ski jackets. Thirsty from all the walking around we end up at the Barentz Pub at the Radisson Blu Hotel for a beer. Funny thing here in Longyearben, it is tradition to leave your outer shoes at the door when entering. So even at the nicest hotel you are greeted by a collection of shoes at the entrance, inside everyone walks about in their socks.

Dinner at the hotels Funktionaersmessen restaurant is good and the Russian waitress is quite entertaining. At 22:30 the sun comes out again from behind the ridge and shines into the diningroom, it feels like 3 in the afternoon ! At 23:00 we go to bed, even now it is bright as day, and even with the curtains closed it isn’t very dark. Doesn’t matter we are tired enough to sleep.

DAY 2 : ON BOARD

After breakfast we re-pack, relax, read and write. We leave the bags in the storage room and head into town once again. First uphill to the old mining town from where you have a good view down over Longyearben.

At least some of the shops are open today, so we check them out, mostly outdoor clothing and gear. Jürg buys a pair of gloves and a warm beanie, I restrain myself and leave the very cool sweater in the shop ( might go buy it on the way home in a weeks time). Back at the hotel we have lunch after which we leave for the Radisson Blu, or meeting point. At 16:00 we finally board the ship, the MS Stockholm and get shown to out tiny cabin. Honest it is 2x3m no more, it has two portholes and has a bunk bed on the one 2m side, just long enough for us to fit in ! We put our stuff in the two drawers under the bed and in the one 30cm wide cupboard, good thing we are sailors and know how to stow away things, it all fits in.

We meet in the lounge for some first information and introductions. We are 11, Lance and Lilla from RSA, Peter and Liza from the UK, Geoff and Christine from Australia, our three single men, Graeme and Kelvin and David also from Down under, plus Jürg and me of course. We head south from Longyearben in the Isfjord and will keep travelling during the night, we’ll be there when we wake up in the morning. After meeting all the crew, security information and a tour of the boat we have some time to relax before we meet again. Ronald and Annette, the expedition leaders tell us what to expect, and how to behave, after that it’s dinner time. After dinner we do a birder photo session, the water is so totally calm it looks as if we are using very slow shutter speeds, it’s all blurry and smooth, we try to get the Fulmars in flight, gliding just over the water’s surface, with reflections if possible.

Turns out harder than expected, because they always show up on the “other side of the boat”. Well, what else did you expect. From there straight to bed, everyone is very tired. Dinner by the way was very good. We are going in the direction of van Keulenfjord.

DAY 3 : POLAR BEAR MORNING

At some time during the night we hear strange sounds, we’re in the ice ! Nothing can keep me in my bed now, dress up and go to the deck, wow, it looks amazing !

It is only 00:30 or so, so after a while I head for bed again, must get some sleep. It’s crazy here, I just took photo’s in the middle of the night and the light is similar to somewhere around 3pm at home. The captain drives up the fjord as far east as we can go, that means till we are stuck in the pack ice. Just a short sleep, at 05:15 there’s a bang on the door, polar bear sighting ! We dress really quickly, rush to the upper deck…. No bear in sight, turns out they saw it through the super-telescope, which has a factor 75, which is like a 3500mm lens. I do have good eyes, but that is too much ! He is coming our direction so we sit and wait, head towards him. Yes, yes, yes, finally we can see him with our bare eyes.

They say we are incredibly lucky. The bear catches a seal, starts to eat it, sees us coming and starts moving. He stops to clean his blood red paws, moves on, moves away, oh no ! We follow and in the end get really close, this is fabulous, a polar bear moving from one sheet of pack ice to the next, looking at us, smelling, he even sat down on his bum, moved on, went to watch his reflection in the water. The only little negative thing is that the researchers put a collar and marking on these bears (a big number on their bum), which is very visible in some photographs. Well that’s what lightroom is for.

Our expert says they don’t need to drink as long as they eat only fat, so if he didn’t go for a drink that is definitely what he was doing. They sun is shining, there is beautiful light on the bear, on the whole scenery, imagine this is only day 1 in the ice, how will they beat this. After a really long time we leave the bear alone and head one deck down for lunch, a delicious soup. Relax a little and then it’s time to gear up, we are going out in the zodiacs. The boat anchors in front of the Akselöya island, a long narrow island which almost completely blocks the entrance to the van Mijenfjord. We board the zodiacs. Easy as can be, there are hardly any waves but there is a dramatic swell in the bay, I’m happy to get off the boat, it rolls and rolls, I’ll soon get sick, so please let’s go.

We do a few rounds to photograph some small icebergs, the light is awful, we might just as well take black and white photos. The mountain in the back is a geological miracle….it shows how the sediments moved when Svalbard was once long ago pressed against Greenland, waves and lines in a very unusual pattern.

We go ashore and look around at the site of a trapper’s cabin, he’s not in or otherwise this piece of land would be out of bounds. There are some photo opportunities but the light is still lousy, this guy has a nice place, cabin with wooden deck, sauna, boat, platform from which reindeer skins are dangling down. Lots of antlers on a heap near the cabin, he’s been busy !

From here we head back to our van Keulenfjord again, the other boat cruising around here (the Quest), saw a female bear with two 1 ½ year old cubs, she made a kill. We are going to the spot they last saw her. Will wait there during the night and hope she comes down to eat the rest tomorrow. Dinner was great as usual and after that we get a message from the bridge, she is moving down already. So we all rush out, bad luck, she turns back to her safe sleeping spot up the hill, and we are off to bed.

DAY 4 : POLAR BEAR EXTRAVAGANZA

Oh shit, it’s 4:00 am and there is knocking on our door again, end of my beauty sleep and time to get up. We are anchored once again in the van Keulenfjord, but in a different spot then yesterday. The mother and cubs have moved down from the hill and are at the kill site eating what is left. By the time we are all geared up and in the zodiacs everything is different… a male bear has come and chased them off, he is now feeding and the mum and cubs are moving away. Who cares we’ll shoot photos of him first, then see where mum is off to.

The coastline here is an about a meter hill wall of ice, we take turns in standing up to be able to see. This is so cool ! It seems mum is returning, so we stay put, and yes she does ! She approaches the male, he seems very intimidated ( it is by the way the male we saw yesterday morning) and leaves.

So now we get photos of the mum and 2 cubs feeding, the male stays close, she chases him off. At one point even the two cubs take on a “somewhat threatening” pose, he gets closer and closer… mum is not reacting at all, keeps eating. Will he kill the cubs ? He gets even closer, what will happen ?

Believe it or not, they rub noses and he gets to join in on the meal, as in one big happy family. Our experts can’t believe their eyes, they’ve never seen anything like this before ! We haven’t either but enjoy the photo opportunity ! After some time the cubs get cheeky and come to check us out, they stand right on the snow ridge, maybe 10m in front of us. We are so lucky !

They move on, we follow, they move onto a flat sheet of ice, walk about, get onto the shore again and roll themselves in the snow. We leave them alone and get back to the boat where we have plenty of time to download our photos before breakfast, it’s only 6:00. After breakfast some time to relax and enjoy the wonderful scenery whilst we move on to our next anchorage. We pass east of Akselöya, and anchor just north of it in Ingeborg Fjellet, damn rolly again. After lunch we get into the zodiacs once more and go ashore. It’s good we’ve had some practise by now, the swell makes our zodiac move up and down for more than a meter, a little trickier to get in than last time. There is a beautiful little beach with great photo opportunities, so when we have the choice to walk to a trapper’s cabin or join Shem on the beach for some seascape photography, I chose the latter and send Jürg on the hike. Back on the boat by 17:00, you really do lose all track of time in this everlasting light. The only thing to go by is the meals, breakfast at 8:00, lunch at 13:00 and dinner at 19:00.

We are now headed south and will keep moving all night. The weather was an issue, the ice situation too, but after checking with the captain the experts decide to show us some ice down south, ice is good ! We are on our way to the Hornsund.

DAY 5 : BABY ON THE RUN AND MALE WITH A KILL

I set the alarm at midnight, we are supposed to enter a very beautiful fjord then. Once on deck I notice we are not quite there yet and it’s freezing cold, so I decide to go back to bed again. Set the alarm at 01:00, just a peek out of the porthole and I decide to stay in bed. It is totally overcast, no good for landscape photos anyway. The captain will find his way into the Hornsund, an anchorage called Brepollen, by himself. I fall asleep again to the sound of ice crunching at our bow, we are entering ice again, love the sound. Don’t think they let you sleep on this ship…at 02:00 there’s a knock at the door, polar bear with cub in sight, let’s go ! We are stuck in a solid mass of ice and about 600m in front of our bow is a polar bear mother with one tiny cub, sleeping on the ice. They have their cubs in December, so this time of year they are ½ a year or 1 ½ year old. This one is clearly a ½ year old, it is much smaller than the two we saw yesterday.

It is really cold so I watch from the lounge with a cup of tea in my hand, they are too far away for a good photo anyway, and the light is also awful. It is totally overcast, a small patch of light on the horizon, it’s only about -1°C but the wind at 15 knots adds a chill factor which makes life outdoors rather uncomfortable. It even starts to snow very lightly.

They get up ! But unfortunately start to move away from us, so we decide go back to bed. At 04:00 there is another knock on the door, they are now on the other side of the boat, so get dressed and out on deck again. Bad luck once more, they move away again. I am so very very tired, this is like army torture where they keep you from getting sleep ! Jürg stays outside I head for my bunk, sleep please ! No way, one hour later Jürg comes to get me. A big male has shown up, Jürg spotted him first ( so proud of you love ), the mother and cub are now moving away from him, and in doing so coming towards us, at last ! Just as I am on the rear deck they start running and run just 30m past our boat, road the bow and off towards the glacier.

In moving away from the male she noticed she was in a corner since we created something like a small channel when moving into the ice, she had to move around us because little cubs can swim but it would cool off too much if she did. Well, junior will definitely be warm now from all the running, he’s never more than 2-3m behind his mum. This is so special, but it only lasted 2 min or so, and now they are out of photo range, and soon also out of sight. The male gets into the water at the channel, will he catch up ? No he doesn’t, for some strange reason he is swimming around in circles, the experts think he might be hunting for birds, swimming below them and then coming up and sucking them in.

So it’s back to bed once more. We now get a few hours at a stretch, 05:30 till 08:00, such luxury ! After breakfast the general plan is to stay here a while, and get some sleep, so everybody heads for their cabins and it gets very quiet on board. For lunch a traditional Swedish meal since all the crew is Swedish. They tell us everybody in Sweden eats this on the last Thursday of the months which have an R in it. We also get in MAY ! First a pea soup with mustard in it, accompanied by a Swedish drink, very sweet, very alcoholic, but it warms you up very nicely. For dessert it’s pancakes with cream and marmelade. We leave our very safe and quiet space in the ice to do some Glacier cruising. The first one, Samarinebreen, is out of reach because of too much ice, and hardly visible through fog and clouds, the only photo I get is of a group of little black and white birdies, black Guillemots. The second one looks a lot better. There’s actually two of them, one to the right, the other at the end of the fjord. We “park” in the ice in front of that one, it’s called Burgerbukta.

Now this is a novelty. They put out the ladder and tell us to leave ship. Not because anything is wrong, just for fun, so we can walk on the ice. Shem takes a group photo, we all line up in front of the ship. It is rather awkward to walk on the ice. The upper layer is very soft and often you sink in 4-5cm, the first few times everybody thinks they are going to crash right through and walk as if they have their pants full… The experts guarantee us that will not happen, they measured the ice and it at least 50cm thick. If it can hold a running 700 kilo polar bear, it should be fine for us! After this it’s time for dinner, just as they tell us to go upstairs in the lounge for coffee and truffles Ronald comes down and the plan changes once again. Walrus ahead, about 4 or 5 of them on a piece of pack-ice. We have been moving south for quite a while now and are in the midst of enormous amounts of sea ice. The scenery is absolutely breath taking, it is white all around us, big chunks of ice as far as you can see. The walrus are lying on one of them, totally relaxed, as we drive past we also get the smell, totally disgusting, oh shit !

It seems totally impossible to get through here, but the captains says it is possible, and we do trust this wise and quiet old sea bear ! If he says go, we go. Jürg is really happy, after the polar bear the walrus is his second favourite. Shooting in this scenery is an extra bonus, it is so cool. Well, it is cool anyway, or rather say cold, the temperature is constant around 0°C but the wind really cools everything off. As long as we are photographing we hardly notice, but afterwards the warmth of the lounge is very welcoming. The truffles are very good, but we don’t have that much time, an hour later the next sighting of walrus, out on deck again.

After that we hang around, go up to the bridge where it is also nice and warm, plus you have great views. I ask the captain if he likes driving the boat through this dense field of ice, he smiles like a like boy and I get a big yes and a smile for an answer. We sort of expected this answer ! At 23:00 we head for bed… no way, forget it ! A mere 5min later the call comes, polarbear with a kill dead ahead. So once again we rush out and race to the bow. Wow once again !

As with the walrus, the scenery is spectacular. The bear, thank God, has no collar or number, he is on a big piece of pack ice, in front of him a huge chunk of red meat, a bearded seal, or rather what the remains of it. Ivory gulls fly around his head, in the back the sun is setting. No not really setting, it never goes down further down than about 30° over the horizon, but lovely anyway. We almost do a full circle around him, very slowly and very quietly, he keeps looking up, putting his nose in the air, smelling us. These bears can hear and see as we do, but smell anything up to 30 km away ! We don’t seem to bother him too much, he keeps eating. After about an hour we have enough photos of a bear eating from just about every angle and we move on. That is the captain moves on to our destination Sturmbukta, we have a tea to warm up. It is not too cold at the moment, there is absolutely no wind, this is about the warmest we’ve experienced, but still your hands get rather cold. In bed by 00:30, we will move south during the night so at last we can sleep.

DAY 6 : NO BEAR DAY

We sleep till 07:30, such a luxury ! During the night the captain decided the ice was too thick to continue and turned the boat around. So that’s why the sound of crushing ice stopped, we were not through it, we went in, turned and went out again. Anyway, we had a good night’s sleep. At breakfast we hear the new plan, glacier cruising then a long ride north to our next anchorage. At the first glacier the ice is too thick to get close, so we keep moving. The next one is the Recherchefjorden we anchor in a very quiet bay, the sun is shining, we are tended to take our jackets off and lie in the sun, this is what spring should be like. We board the zodiac to get closer to the 2 walrus that are dozing at the waterside, slowly we get closer and closer, so close I can even put the wide angle lens on. From here it is 3 nautical miles to the glacier, so zip up your jackets, pull the beanie over your ears, and off we go at full throttle. Shit, it’s cold, the sun has gone, just clouds and wind, the weather changes so fast here. The ride takes about 15min. The glacier front is beautiful, but again there is quite a lot of ice in front of it, we can’t get very close and the light is still lousy.

We take some shots of a flock of Killiwakes, little grey and white birds that look like gulls. As we get close they fly away, making for a good photo opportunity. We hike over the terminal moraine to the spot we saw two seals. Unfortunately by the time we get there they are gone. Back to the zodiac, everybody is freezing now anyway, and then back to the boat. We get another go at the Killiwakes, this time the glacier as a background which is 100x better, we get some cool shots when they take off.

Back on the boat, we have lunch as the boat moves north. As we are checking out our photos, downloading, deleting them, Ronald comes to say we are approaching the next glacier, the Fridtjovbreen. We go quite a way into the ice till we get stuck, 15min photo time the captain says. Shem shows us how to use the graduated filter, it really does make a difference, suddenly the grey mess up there shows some interesting contrasts.

As we leave here a long journey awaits us, way past Longyearben and the entrance to Isfjord to an island where there should be a walrus haul out, hundreds of them. The bad thing, we will only get here by 23:00 or so. The good thing : this means we get another night of sleep, at least 6 hours ! Dinner is really good, after the salmon we had the first night, this is my other favourite, an Indian lamb curry. The food on this trip is amazing anyway, all the lunches and dinners are really good.

DAY 7 : WALRUS FOR BREAKFAST

The anchorage at Poolepynten on the east side of the Forland Island is very quiet, we had another good nights sleep. To be honest the midnight knocks were much more exiting ! I’ve slept enough now. On a little peninsula jutting out from the island there are a bunch of walrus. After breakfast we take the zodiac to the shore and walk towards them. The closest distance allowed is 30m and Ronald is very strict about this, till here and no further. It’s close enough, in the background the mainland with mountains and glaciers, in the foreground a messy heap of snoring and farthing walrus.

These guys can sleep and will hardly move for 12 weeks at a time, and that is exactly what they do. Every now and then one of them lifts their head, takes up an even more comfortable position, cuddles a little closer to his neighbour. Shem tells us to move a little to the right to get an even better background, we lie on our stomachs in the snow to get better angles. The walrus must think we are a crazy bunch, but they don’t really seem to mind us being there. By GPS we find out we are only at 42m so we take another 12 big steps towards the “walrus heap”. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which part belongs to which animal, they are so close together. Annette calls from the beach, there is one of them approaching from the water, curious, as most animals here, he swims up to us, really close !

We are now all lined up, sitting or lying on the beach, ready for another encounter. In the end there are 3 or 4 of them in the water, taking turns in visiting us. They try to move their immense bodies onto land, have to stop and take a break every 5m or so, but they make it, and try to get in the middle of the big heap. Wouldn’t want one of them climbing over me whilst I was sleeping.

Just about as we are leaving and already walking towards the zodiac, the back of our group with the slower walkers calls out: the Svalbard reindeer are coming. We sit very still and these too come up to us. Not quite as close as the walrus in the water, but close enough to get some cool shots. They are very small, a lot smaller than we had expected, very white fur and with huge black eyes. I believe after the polar bears these are now my 2^nd favourites, they are so cute !

We cruise along the Dahlbreen glacier after lunch, at last we found a glacier which hasn’t got a whole load of fast ice ( ice which is attached to land, as opposed to pack ice which is free floating ice) in front of it. The sun is shining, the glacier lights up, we see every crease, crack and crease in the ice, there are little bits floating around in front of it, the sky in the background is a bright dark blue, such a lovely contrast.

Whilst sailing out we discover a bearded seal on a piece of ice and circle around the poor creature till we have shots from every angle. From here we travel to the next fjord called St. Jonsfjord, the trip there is a pleasure cruise, warm and sunny, an incredibly beautiful landscape all around us, we are all very happy. This calls for a celebration ! Some drink G&T in the lounge, others have a glass of champagne on the bow.

Roland is seriously worried we will not be able to do the next outing if we keep up drinking like this, it is only 15:00. We cruise along the fast ice near Gaffelbreen Glacier, the hike is scratched from the plan… not because we are all drunk, but because there are some other people already there. For the wildlife photographers there is one lonely seal on the very edge of the fast ice, we edge closer and closer, everybody is ready for the action shot when she will slip into the water.

It never happens as expected. This one decides to stay where it is, even backs up. Incredible, if I had something 100x bigger than me approach me I’d run ! During dinner we move on, let’s see where we wake up tomorrow. It will definitely be in some side arm of the Isfjord, tomorrow is our last full day !

DAY 8 : AM I BECOMING A BIRDER?

We wake at 07:30 because our alarm goes off. I’ve never slept this long before ! We are again anchored at an unbelievably beautiful, and very quiet and peaceful spot in Alkehornet. Today we will go ashore, hike up a hill to a bird cliff. At its foot is grass, or at least something green resembling grass, and this normally attracts a lot of reindeer. Very good, I would love to see more of those. We hike and I take a photo of a pair of Arctic Skua and some Barnacle Geese, there are lots of those here, and nothing else to photograph anyway. At the slope towards the big vertical cliff, there is still some snow, in it, very far away, we see 3 reindeer which don’t look as if they would like to move down.

The landscape is brown, greenish and black, the view towards the fjord and out on the ocean is in different shades of white and blue, once again it’s breathtaking. We sit for ages at the den of the Arctic fox, which doesn’t show up either. We walk towards the ocean, to stretch our legs, I photograph some more birds….

Shit ! A lonely reindeer approaches, walks exactly to the spot we had been sitting the last hour. Only Roland, Liza and Christine were still there, it came right towards them ! Why didn’t I stay, I so wanted a reindeer photo, now all I got is birds ! ( sorry, I am not a birder as you might have noticed). In the zodiac on the way back to the boat there is a gigantic flock of Killiwakes on the water, cameras out and as we get closer they take off, lovely photos of birds over the water, a background of snowy mountains and glaciers.

We move on to our next spot, about a 4 hour cruise, so after lunch everybody disappears. Some sleep, some download or work on photo’s, some just sit in the sun and enjoy the view. At 15:30 we get a lecture by Shem, after that the next outing. He actually explains lightroom to us, lots of useful tips and tricks. They have to come warn us we are almost at our destination, we are all so very concentrated. We are now at Skansbukta and once again we board the zodiac. This is a famous bird cliff, its structure, and that of the other mountains around us is amazing. At the top there’s lots of birds flying around, fewer at the bottom. We find a nest of black guillemots and watch a gull steal eggs from it. There are puffins flying to and from the cliffs. You can easily identify them, even if you don’t see the colours yet, they are the ones frantically flapping their wings at an impressive speed. With the big lens we get a good look but they are still very high up the cliff. Lucky for us we spot 2 of them on the water, we very slowly get closer, it might have been just 5-10m away, the side light makes their orange beaks light up brightly, they are really close ! They are absolutely adorable.

We move on, intending to go the shore, where there is an old mine and a cabin, to do some landscape shots. As usual we change our plan, two more puffins on the water, we get even closer to these and the water is much calmer here, beautiful ! Suddenly Ronald sees a king eider in the big group of eider on the opposite shore. We are getting to be experts in sneeking up on unexpecting birds. Me, the non-birder, even I get exited trying to find the one with the orange thing on his beak in the whole flock swimming on the water in front of us. We do see him, we even see two. I am told by the birders that this is a very special sighting. I get another good shot as they all take off. Then it’s back to the boat. At dinner we are told this was definitely our last outing, we are heading for the Longyearbyen harbour now. We have our bags in front of our cabins and must now try to get all our stuff in them again. We’ll do that later, time to celebrate with our new photographer friends, champagne or wine whatever we like. Turns out to be a very funny and entertaining evening. Just as we are leaving for our cabin to do the unavoidable packing, Shem comes in and tells us he’s just about bought a house. So we celebrate again, but since the champagne and wine are finished we switch to G&T and whisky. A little later and a little more drunk than planned, we finally make it to our cabin at 00:30. Oh well, we will certainly not get a knock on the door tonight waking us for a polar bear photo. I will miss that !

DAY 9 : MOVING ON

Can’t say much about today, we are all very sad to leave our cosy little boat, the great staff, the fabulous food and we will miss the awesome photo moments we have had. At 9:00 we are brought to the Radisson Blu where we leave our bags, go shopping. The usual tourist things, magnets, postcards, t-shirts, gloves, a sweater. We even do a few photos since in this town stands the one and only Santa Claus mailbox ! It’s huge !

We have lunch at the Svalbard café, very nice sandwiches, with Lilla and Lance, and at 12:45 we are all transferred to the airport. Shit our plane is late, we are all worried, we’ll never make our connections. I am not staying here, that’s for sure, the ice is nice, but the town….

copyright photo & text by Astrid & Juerg Bluemel for bluemelphoto.ch