Arctic Sailing with Aurora Expeditions

​I just returned from an amazing expedition cruise in the Arctic. I sailed with Aurora Expeditions on the Greg Mortimer. The ship is small and holds up to 130 guests on polar expeditions. The expedition team was amazing and I learned quite a bit about Svalbard and its wildlife.  I enjoy learning when I travel and for an expedition that often means being able to better understand animal behavior the next time you see them.   A quick fact for your next trivia outing...a group of walrus in the water is often nicknamed "an ugly of walrus".  It isn't the official term, but it is still used.  I may be in the minority, but I love walrus and ugly wouldn't be my first word for them. 

Our journey began in Oslo, Norway before we boarded a charter flight north to the archipelago of Svalbard. The Arctic Circle is located at 66.5 degrees north latitude which is considered quite far north---this is where the midnight sun and polar night occurrences start giving full daylight or full darkness in the summer and winter. We landed in Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen at a latitude of over 78 degrees. In other words, it is really far north :) The airport is the northernmost in the world and many of the town’s businesses claim to be the northernmost of whatever they are (gas station, grocery store, etc.).
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We had a tour of Longyearbyen (the main town in Svalbard) before boarding.  We met very friendly sled dogs and it concerned me a bit that they were all chained to small houses, but they find it hard to stand still and this ensures that aren't out on their own in polar bear territory.  These dogs need long (10+ miles) runs each day.  The Global Seed Vault is here---this is where there are back up seeds for most of the world’s crops in case of a worst case scenario.

Once on board, we settled in for our safety briefings. This area of the world is very remote and there are no people living where we were sailing once we left Longyearbyen. The ship is modern and was the most stable ship I’ve ever been on. The ship was custom made for polar travel and it can break through some ice, although it isn’t an icebreaker class ship. I can honestly say I only felt the ship rock a few times and most times I needed to look out the window to see if we were stopped or sailing.

​Since we were so far north, we had Midnight Sun…. meaning it never got dark or even close to dark the whole sailing. It is a little disorienting to look out of your balcony at 11pm trying to get ready for bed to see the sun high above the horizon. The blackout curtains were a nice feature and an eye mask helped with the small residual light.

Polar expedition cruises are different from other types of cruising. There is no set itinerary---for the cruise or each day. You have to be flexible and go with the flow. The first night the expedition team leader set the expectation that we would hopefully get above 80 degrees north which typically means more ice and he wanted to set us on a course to circumnavigate the entire archipelago. Very few cruise lines even attempt this and we were all really excited at the prospect. Spoiler alert: it happened (we even got to over 81 degrees north). What didn’t happen was several landing sites and zodiac cruises, but the back up options were likely just as good or even better than what was originally suggested just a few hours earlier. 

You may be wondering why they can’t commit to an itinerary. There are many reasons. The weather is one. We were so lucky as we had sun nearly every day and had mild wind speeds---the weather only
changed our plans a couple of times. The animal we all came to see is the one that derailed the most plans. Yes, the polar bears. Polar bears can move very quickly and smell things as far as 30km a way (like a whale carcass…..or a human sized snack). It isn’t safe to be on an islet with a polar bear or in the water (even in a Zodiac) when a polar bear is swimming. The bear likely wouldn’t do anything to a group of humans---we aren’t their first choice for a meal---but they can attack. Everyone on board wanted to see bears but also 100% wanted to protect them as well. The rules require that you must have guides equipped with both a flare gun and a riffle when in polar bear territory. The first line of defense is a flare gun and most times if a bear is seen and doesn’t retreat, a flare explosion does the trick. However, occasionally the bears aren’t deterred and lethal force is authorized for self-defense. In an average year, several bears are killed in Svalbard due to human bear encounters.

Many of the places we visited are not places you will know---I certainly hadn’t heard of these areas before getting on board. One place we visited called Kvitoya (aka White Island) is rarely visited and has a really unique history. We were fortunate to have a historian on board who specializes in this area. This island is where we had some amazing polar bear and walrus sightings. Of course I didn’t lug my huge camera lens that day on the Zodiac, so I don’t have as good of photos as I could have gotten, but I will remember the experience forever. This is a good time to mention that there are rules in place regarding how close you can get to the wildlife and most of the times there is a natural barrier, so while it looks like the wildlife is fairly close in these photos, they were not. In real time, the conversation with the guide was often, do you see that small white dot….or do you see that blob on the beach. You then had to look through binoculars or your telephoto lens in order to see that that small white dot was a bear or the blob was a seal, a walrus or a fox. There were a few exceptions where we were close, but it doesn’t happen all of the time. Even when we were tracking dots and. blobs, you could still see some behavior with the naked eye. Like on this island when a polar bear decided to move down a mountainside at a very fast pace….and then at a point slid for a bit. Whether that was a practiced move that they intended to do or just slid we will never know, but it made the whole Zodiac smile and chuckle.  Thank you to my fellow passenger Leonie for the photos of the walrus in the water---I tried many times to get them in a frame and just couldn't do it. 

If I went on this sailing 100 times, it would be different each time. Yes, the scenery and mountains would be similar, but the experience wouldn’t be. The sunny and clear weather we had made it easier to see everything and catch the beautiful colors of the ice. This is a wild area, so even sailing 2 hours before or after may yield a completely different wildlife sighting. Even each Zodiac (which has about 10 people in each) can have a different experience in the same area. The first Zodiac out may see a seal or walrus on ice before they decide to jump in the water or perhaps a curious animal might come out to see what is up in time for the last Zodiac to catch a glimpse. Some of this can be frustrating when you come back on board and see other people’s photos and realize you didn’t see what they saw….but it is all an adventure and it is an amazing experience for those of us that love wildlife. I still wish I had chosen a different table at lunch one day---someone was eating and looked into the water to see a polar bear swimming alongside the ship! She said something, but by the time we all ran to that
side of the ship, but the bear was long gone (since the ship was moving).  Note the black and white birds in the photo below are NOT penguins...penguins don't live in the Arctic.  These are Brünnich guillemots.  

​I could go on and on about everything I saw, but I think you get the idea :) If you read this and want to experience the Arctic for yourself, please contact me to get started planning. Please note that this is a trip where you need to be reasonably fit as all of the excursions are done by Zodiac---you never stop in a spot where you can simply walk off the ship. The staff help you board the Zodiacs, but you do need to have balance and the ability to adapt if the ocean conditions change (like hold on with both hands). There were a few guests on board that didn’t have the mobility to get in the Zodiacs every day, but they enjoyed seeing the scenery (and some wildlife) from the ship, so that is an option.