adventures in *

Starting off at Phippsøya, we head to the northernmost point of our voyage. Along the way, we encounter the swimming polar bear.

After reaching 80.5N, we turn south to visit the Krassin marker at Beverlysundet.

We end with the sighting of fin whales at 11:30pm, basked in the golden light of the midnight sun.

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cabin 208

First impressions of the ship, it’s quite nice. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s basically a 3 star hotel on the sea. My cabin has 3 beds, 1 of them a bunk. Three 1 ft wide closets, a desk, couple chairs and table between the beds. The bathroom was tiny, but functional.

The ship’s engines are much quieter than the MV Orlova, which I took to Antarctica, but every once in awhile the entire ship would vibrate like the engine was misfiring or out of balance – never did figure out what caused it.

I was the first one in the cabin, so I picked one of the bottom beds. Looks like Ross and Nicolas would be my cabin mates.

After wandering around the ship for a bit, an announcement was made over the PA system looking for the luggage belonging to Nicolas Chan. It turns out he wasn’t in my cabin after all. The crew saw the last name on the tag and grouped it with mine. So I essentially got a free upgrade, sweet.

During the evening briefing, Laurie Dexter, our expedition leader outlined our itinerary. We would be sailing south to Hornsund, then cutting between the islands of Edgeøya and Barentsøya, passing Nordaustlandet to the northernmost island in the Svalbard archipelago, Sjuøyene. Then visit Ny Alsund, a research station, before arriving back in Longyearbyen.

In the past 2 sailings, the ship went clockwise around Svalbard, but now mid-season, enough sea ice has melted to allow the ship to sail counter-clockwise along a slightly different route.

I’ve posted some photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/alvinychan/SvalbardNorway
I’ll have more updates in the next week.

I’m finally over my jet lag but now with the 24 daylight, I want to stay up all day to take photos. I got up at 7 to get breakfast then spent an hour cleaning my lenses, filters, and camera bodies.

This trip I think I brought too much gear. I bought a bigger backpack and ended up filling it completely.

Gear includes
5dm2
40d
panasonic lx3
Gopro hero hd

16mm f2.8 Zenitar fisheye
20mm f3.5 Voigtlander
17-40 f4l
24-70 f2.8l
70-200 f2.8l is
100-400 f5.6-6.3l
Rode video mic
64gb 400x transcend cf
3 x 16 gb sandisk extreme iii
8 gb sandisk extreme iv

Manfrotto 190mf3 with Acratech Ultimate ballhead
Slik mini tripod

580exii flash

Alienware m11x laptop
2x Seagate Freeagent 500 gb usb drives

All in a F-stop Satori bag, which I didn’t have any problems fitting in the overhead compartments of an Airbus 320, 757-200, and 737-800.

I met up with Mirjam and her friend Peter at the Radisson in the afternoon for tea. Lesley-Anne, from Scotland, whom I met on the airport shuttle bus also joined us. Once the rest of the passengers arrived at the hotel, we were shuttled 5 minutes down to the pier.

On board and settled in, we were doing a mandatory safety drill when 4 beluga whales were spotted off the bow. The drill was abandoned and we all ran to the front of the ship to get a view. We hadn’t even left the port and already had our first wildlife spotting, a sign of good things to come.

Life boat saftey drill

The midnight sun, hiding behind the clouds

I took the 9:55a flight to Longyearbyen, arriving around 2pm. I ran into Mirjam and her friend on the plane, she was seated in the row in front of me, funny coincidence.

Checked into the Radission SAS, the world’s northern most 5 star hotel. I don’t think it’s worth $300 USD a night, but I keep telling myself Norway is expensive. It did have a nice view of the surrounding mountains and shore.

Longyearbyen is an interesting town, definitely has that arctic outpost feeling. Population is 2000, mostly in the service industry. Cruise ships transit through here before heading around the island. Before tourism took hold, it was a mining town and still is today. Old coal mines dot the mountainsides and towards the airport, a new clean coal burning plant is built next to the old one. I was able to walk freely around Longyearbyen’s main source of power, there was no security.

After a small lunch of a Clif bar and oatmeal raisin cookie, I headed out for a walk. I saw remnants of a coal mine on one of the hills and headed towards it. I was only planning a short walk, but ended up hiking a couple miles to the peak of the western mountain overlooking the city. It was cold and blustery up top, but I stayed up there for a few hours shooting.

Returning to the hotel, I went to the adjoining pub for a well deserved steak, fries, and beer. I headed out after a bit of digesting, it was midnight and the sun was hanging over the northern horizon. It’s bizarre walking around in broad daylight but there was not a soul to be seen. I got back to the hotel and crashed at around 2a.

Stave Church near Vann

Rain woke me up around 4:30, I fell back to sleep and got up at 8 to mostly sunny skies. Today I need to head back to Oslo to catch a flight to Longyearbyen the next morning. Along the way, I stopped by a couple stave churches – built in the 1100s, they were in great shape, I wonder how much renovation they needed through the centuries.

I drove through the Laerdalstunnelen, which was as cool as I thought it’d be. A 15 mile long tunnel bored through the mountains. 3 large caverns every 4 miles were brightly lit blue to simulate daylight. Its designed to keep drivers awake so they don’t doze off and crash. Speed cameras kept me from flooring it but it was fun never the less, I drove through it twice.

It took me 7 hours to get back to oslo, minus the detour for the tunnel – 220 miles in distance. In addition to the low speed limits, the norwegian roads are narrow and twisty. The highways are mostly 2 lanes, but vast stretches don’t have a center line and sometimes narrows to a single lane with pullouts. Its a little scary going around blind corners or steep drop offs at 80.

I made it back to the hotel at 8p and spent a few hours sorting photos, I’ll have some to post tomorrow.

I camped overnight and actually slept better than at the hotel. Woke up around 4a when it started getting light out. I met up with the Icetroll tour guides around 10 and we drove up to the trailhead with a group of 7 other people.

We put in the kayaks and paddled 6 km to the edge of the Austdalsbreen glacier. After a break for lunch, we put on crampons, roped up and headed onto the glacier. The sides of the glacier were covered with a dark sludge, Carlos our tour guide explained that it’s ground up rocks that get picked up by the glacier and moves to the top as the glacier melts. There were also hundreds of dark 1″ holes in the ice, they were dead lemmings. During the winter when the glacier is covered with snow, lemmings come out to forage for food. Unfortunately they don’t find anything and die of starvation. Their dark bodies absorb more heat from the sunlight and melts the ice faster then the surrounding area. That was interesting.

We trudged around on the glacier walking near crevasses and admiring the deep blue color deep within the ice.
Carlos threw some ice chunks into one and we heard it bounces down and down for 30 seconds. That’d be a bad place to fall down.

Later we noticed a wave forming in the lake, the front of the glacier had calved into the water and sent a 5 ft tall wave across. There were 2 kayakers in the water and we watched them bob up and down as the waves passed them. They were ok, Carlos radioed to another tour guide to warn them.

We headed back to the kayaks after a couple hours of hiking then paddled back. My hands were starting to blister and my shoulders were sore, it had been awhile since I’ve kayaked this far.

We got back to our cars around 7, I headed to Sogndal to stay overnight. By the time I got there, it was 9:30 and all the hotels I checked were either full or charging $250 USD, too much. I camped down next to the Sognefjord with the sound of the water lapping against the rocks to put me to sleep.

I picked up a Toyota Prius at the airport, I was hoping for a new Golf but it was all they had available. I had an exhausting drive to Gjerde, 445km away but it took me nearly 9 hours. The speed limit in Norway is generally 90kph on the E roads (major highways) and 60 on the minor ones. Photo radar boxes are set up along the road to catch speeders, they do a good job keeping everyone near the speed limit. I was worried about snow on the road along route 55 through the Jotunheimen mountains, at an elevation of 1430 meters, it’s the highest road in Northern Europe.

I’m too tired to sort through photos today, I’m going to try to get more than 2 hours of sleep like the previous nights. I’ll need it for the kayaking and glacier hiking at Styggevatnet tomorrow.

Only managed 2 hours of sleep, thanks to the jet lag and tram. Headed out around 8:30a to Holmenkollen, using the subway and bus. One ticket system to use the mass transportation here – bus, tram, subway, ferry. Real easy to get around.

The Holmenkollen Nordic Center includes a museum of skiing. It shows the history of telemark and they had wooden skis from 600AD to present day carbon fiber skis.

A short elevator ride to the stop of the jump to get a birds eye view of the city. A weather system moved in overnight and the skies were cloudy, so I didn’t get take any good pictures of the skyline. The ski jump itself was still under construction for the FIS Championships next winter.

Next I took the ferry over to Bygdøy to visit the Viking Ship and Fram museum. Vikings buried their heroes with weapons, jewelry, and even full size ships – to use in the after life. Three ships were on display, dating back to around 800AD, they were in good shape considering how old they are.

The Fram museum houses the ship used by Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen, they explored the South and North Pole in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

Rain started to fall, it was starting to feel like Seattle. I walked over to Vigeland Park and risked my camera taking pictures in the heavy rain. There were hundreds of stone statues showing the human form in everyday poses. There weren’t too many people out braving the weather, I practically had the park to myself.

In the morning, I head off to Sogne og Fjord region in the west. Route 55 goes through the mountains, highest point is 4600 feet, I’m hoping it doesn’t snow.

Opera House

I took the Flybussen (bus) from the airport, which is about 40 miles north of Oslo. The area reminded me of Springfield Oregon, rolling hills covered with expansive field of grass. Sparsely populated with small farms dotting the landscape.

I went to check into my hotel, the Thon Hotel Europa. My room has a great view of the tram, which passes by every 5 minutes until midnight and starts again at 7a. The room itself was very basic, tiny double beds and a bathroom the size of a closet.

I went to the Royal Palace, which was an impressive sight. Armed guards with rifles at the entrance. I like the fact in Europe, such places are easily accessible to the public.

Next was the National Gallery to see some famous works by Munch, Picasso, the one that impressed me the most was Dahl. He painted landscapes that look almost like photographs.

I make it a point to visit a chinese restaurant in each country I visit. In a place that is completely foreign to me, seeking out chinese food is a comfort. My first meal in Norway was authentic dim sum. The waitress I spoke to is first generation Norwegian Chinese. She spoke cantonese, english, norwegian and vietnamese – real impressive. There’s a large vietnamese population in Oslo, didn’t expect that. Oh and no tong yun gai (chinatown), the closest thing was Torggata gata (street) which is lined with ethnic restaurants.

I walked to the Opera House, a wedge shaped metal and glass covered building on the waterfront. It was designed to allow people to walk on the building, all the way to the roof, pretty cool. The weather was perfect for sitting by the water and people watching for awhile, lower 70s with a cool breeze.

Enough sight seeing for the day, back to the hotel to rest.

Over the North Atlantic

During the flight to Philadelphia, I ordered a sandwich for lunch. As I was handing the steward my credit card, he said “I don’t need that, Ill trade the sandwich for your Blackberry.” I told him I’d be lost without it.

He replied, “It’s better to be lost than to be hungry.” Something to ponder. I’m probably over thinking it, needless to say, I kept my phone.

Then leaving Philadelphia to Oslo, the plane was taxiing down the runway and the captain announced that a thunderstorm cell was in our flight path. New York center air traffic control needed to re-route us but their system was down. They needed to manually re-route, I imagine it was a bunch of chimpanzees with slide-rules drawing over maps. While they were working on that, we pulled off to the side of the runway and waited. After an hour, we had a new flight plan and were on our way to Oslo.

No time for Russia like I had originally planned, instead I’ll focus on Oslo and Sogn og Fjordane in the west.

2 days in Oslo, I’m going to see Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’ at the National gallery. Then visit the Holmenkollen ski jump north of the city, great views from the top. It was rebuilt last year in preparation for the 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. It’ll be cool to stand at the top of the jump, although I wouldn’t want to strap on skis to go down it. Not sure what else I’ll do in the city, depends on how jet lagged I’ll be.

I’m renting a car on Monday to drive around the Sogn og Fjordane region, it’s famous for its fjords and glaciers. I have a tour booked on Tuesday to kayak around the glacial lake Styggevatnet, then put on crampons to hike on the glacier itself. The company I’m using is www.icetroll.com

Wednesday I’ll visit Balestrand and then to Aurland through the world’s longest road tunnel – 15 miles!

Thursday I fly to Longyearbyen, staying there overnight before boarding the MS Expedition to cruise around the island. I’ve been reading the ice charts for the past couple weeks and it looks like most of the large icebergs have melted making it possible to completely circumnavigate the island.

After 8 days at sea, I’ll head back to the states and start planning for my next adventure.

I grabbed the code from Gap’s site, this will show the MS Expedition in near real-time. Its first sailing of the season is June 30 from Edinburgh to Longyearbyen. I’ll be on the July 30 to August 7 sailing.

I received an email from Quark Expeditions yesterday morning around 11, they’re offering the kayaking option ($500 value) for free on their Arctic cruises this summer. That got me thinking, I remembered a friend that I met on the Antarctica cruise, booked a trip for Spitsbergen awhile ago. I emailed her to see which cruise company she’s going with.

She sent me a link to Gap Adventures, they were having an even better deal, 50% off. A long night of research and I’ve booked my trip this morning.

Spitsbergen is the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago, it’s located about 600 miles south of the North Pole and at 78′N, is above the Arctic circle, so there’s 24 hour daylight during the summer. I’ll be going towards the end of July and returning on 8/8.

I’ll catch a flight from Las Vegas to Oslo and spend some time there before flying to Longyearbyen, in Spitsbergen, to board the ship. The itinerary calls for circumnavigating the island which will take about 8 days. Stopping to view a variety of wildlife – polar bears, puffin, whales, seals, walruses.. We’ll take Zodiac rafts to shore to visit old whaling stations, research bases, and get a closer look at the wildlife.

Since I’m arriving a week before the cruise, I’ve been looking into visiting Russia, I didn’t realize Norway borders it in the far north. The town of Kirkenes is 9 miles from the border. Still doing research on whether I’ll have enough time to go to Murmansk or atleast Nikel.

(photo from gapadventures.com)