Everyone has a dream destination, or an idea of it, however
vague it be, the kind of place that wants us to leave everything behind, go out
into the world, look deep into our hearts and find out what it truly wants and
then do it. For me that place has always been the two extremities of the earth,
the two poles. Whether it's the animated penguins or gigantic glaciers in
Antarctica or the quintessential image of a polar bear digging out a seal from
the burrows in the Arctic sea ice, something has always drawn me towards the
north and south pole alike. And somehow, last year the pull got so strong that
I could no longer resist and caved in. Thus began the planning for the greatest
adventure of my life so far!
The travel window for the Arctic is fairly limited, due to
the extreme cold and lack of sunlight for half the year, roughly June to
August. After much deliberation about expenses and leave from work, I
finally managed to book an arctic cruise in Svalbard for 10 days in July
2016. I was super excited about the prospect of encountering Polar
bears in their natural habitat. Till now I had only seen one in the
Detroit zoo.
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| A polar bear jumping across the sea ice |
And now that I am back from the trip, I am proud to tell you that the
polar bear count stands revised to 25! That's about 15 more than my
wildest imagination, yes I was that lucky! Watching a polar bear on the sea ice is such a fulfilling experience that everything else, the midnight
sun, the walrus, various kinds of seal, reindeer, arctic fox, bird
colonies on vertical cliffs and mountain slopes with hundreds of
thousands of birds and almost miniaturized flora unique to the Arctic
region felt like an added bonus. A big surprise element was the spectacular
landscape. I was expecting sea and ice for most part but the terrain
varied from barren polar deserts to islands lush green with vegetation
primarily due to the fertilization by tons of droppings from the bird
colonies! I did not even foresee the amazing vistas created by the
hundreds of fjords in the Svalbard archipelago, like this one below:
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| Brash ice in front of a glacier at Magdalenefjorden |
For more photographs from the trip, feel free to check out my Facebook page:
Or my Instagram feed:
Now
a lot of you have asked me about details of my itinerary or how to go
about planning a trip to the Arctic. I will share some of the things I
learned while planning this trip and if you want further details you can
leave comments and I will try and address them as quickly as I can.
First
of all, the Arctic Circle isn't a very well defined place, loosely
speaking anything north of 66° latitude is part of the Arctic region
(not exactly but let's ignore that) and that would include parts of
Russia, Scandinavia, Greenland, Canada and Alaska. So you can visit the
Arctic from any of these places. One of the most popular destinations in
the Arctic is an archipelago called Svalbard, which is a part of Norway
but located quite north of the mainland Norway. This is what I had
visited and for the rest of the blog, I will talk only about Svalbard.
Although
part of Norway, Svalbard is party to an international treaty which
allows free access to almost everyone. Now before you pack your bags
thinking you don't need a visa - there is a catch! The only flights to
Svalbard are from Norway, so you will require a valid visa to Norway,
which means a Schengen. So flying to Svalbard generally looks
like this - you fly from your city to Oslo in Norway and then either fly
SAS or Norwegian Airlines from Oslo to Longyearbyen, the capital and
only city of Svalbard. Being almost a monopoly, these airlines would
charge you quite a bit for the relatively short flight but the views
from the window are stunning.
Longyearbyen is a small town with a
population of about 2000 or so and used to be a mining town at some
point. Now it's the point of origin/end of all Arctic voyages in
Svalbard. The most common and practical way of touring Svalbard is on a cruise ship. Many people come here just to board their ship and don't spend
much time here, however there are a lot of day tours that are offered
and if you want to take it slow you can easily tag a few days here on
either side of your cruise. Just like the flights, expect to pay dearly
for the hotels.
So far so good. Now comes the toughest part - how
do you choose a cruise ship? I took months to answer this question for
myself and I realize that it is very subjective. Instead of telling you
which ships/cruise companies I think are good I will list down the
questions you should ask yourself and evaluate potential ships against
these to figure out what's right for you. Remember, this is the single
most important decision you will make regarding the trip that can make
or break your overall experience so give it enough time and thought.
Here we go:
1. Creature comforts: Ships sailing to the Arctic
range from basic ones that were once used as research vessels and have
now been refitted to take passengers to ultra luxurious ones (think
Titanic! well almost). The price differential between ships and among
different accommodation classes on the same ship is huge so your budget
might dictate thus choice as well.
2. Size of the ship: these
ships can range from a privately chartered 20 passenger boat to a large
ship with over 500 passengers. Size of the ship matters in more ways
than you can think. A larger ship is more stable in rough waters, has
more amenities and avenues of entertainment, more passengers to mingle
with (easy to avoid the obnoxious ones too!) and might be more
economical. On the other hand a smaller ship is more intimate, you get
to know the other passengers and crew closely, can go to places a big
ship can not, can unload and load passengers faster (this is crucial
when you go out of the ship for a zodiac cruise or a shore landing -
don't worry, I will explain both in a while).
3. Ice rating of
the ship - Depending on how strong the hull of the ship is for
navigating around ice, it has a different ice rating ranging from 1D to
1A (nomenclature can vary depending on the system used). 1D is the
weakest and 1A the strongest. Now 1D doesn't mean that the ship is
unsafe. It only means that the ship won't try and navigate through ice
and choose it's path based on the ice condition. Whereas a class 1A ship
will go about more freely and won't have to worry about navigating
through thin ice (and thin ice only). Icebreakers are a different
category altogether (think north pole) and I won't touch upon them here.
Essentially, if you want to see the polar bears or seals up close in
their natural habitat on the sea ice you want a ship that has an ice
strengthened hull, basically a rating of 1A or 1B.
4. Expedition
leader and staff: This is perhaps the most difficult factor to evaluate
but in my opinion the most important factor in choosing a ship/company.
An expedition leader decides the course of the ship every day/hour and
his experience in making the right calls on the weather and the sea
conditions and animal behavior can completely make or break your
experience. However, these trips are booked an year or so in advance
generally and it's tough to get the information about the expedition
leader before booking (or even after that for that matter). Scouring
through online reviews, using your personal contacts and diligent
follow-ups with the companies can get you the right answers.
5.
Timing: not every ship is sailing in the Arctic at the same time and the
best time to watch different animals is different. So depending on your
interest you have to figure out the best month to sail and you will
have to check which ship is sailing during those days.
6. Budget:
it's influenced by many of the factors above but after you have
narrowed down your choices based on the above questions you may find
that some or all of them do not fit in your budget in which case
you will need to re-prioritize or make compromises e.g. choose a sharing
room over a single room.
Another way to cut the budget is to choose a shorter cruise. The cruise duration ranges from a week to three weeks. I find 10 days to be just about right.
With your flights and the ship sorted out, you are almost done with the planning. You need to worry about two more things:
1. Appropriate clothing for the Arctic climate and the nature of activities on the ship.
2.
Photography equipment (I think even if you are not a photographer, it's
unlikely you will go all the way to the Arctic and not want to take
pictures! I will tackle both of these in separate blog posts in the future.
In
case you are wondering if I forgot... I didn't! Coming to the topic of
zodiac cruises and shore landings - these are two of the main
activities (kayaking is a third option, but I will take that up in comments section if someone is interested) that you will perform outside the ship almost on a daily
basis, once to thrice a day.
Zodiacs are small inflatable boats
(like white water rafts but with engines) that can carry about 8-10
passengers and you cruise around in the waters on that when it's not
possible to land onshore. It's a great way to get up close to icebergs,
mountain cliffs, shores and sometimes glaciers.
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| Zodiacs and Kayaks tied up on the Aft of the Ship |
Shore landings
basically mean you are taken from the ship to a nearby island on a
zodiac and then you get off on the island and walk around either in an
organized hike or you move freely within a set perimeter. Each of these
activities can last anywhere between 2-4 hours.
With that out of
the way, let me go back to the question of size of ship. Passengers
board the zodiacs in serial and it can take a while to board everyone.
So if you are on a large ship, you may have wait 30-45 minutes for your
turn to board whereas a small ship can have everyone out and about in
under 15 minutes. When you have just spotted an interesting animal on the
shore, who is walking away, and want to get close to take a glimpse of
it, that extra 20 minutes might be the difference in you seeing or not
seeing the animal. A small ship by the same token, is more capable of
making use of fleeting opportunities because of its faster turnaround
times in getting people out on the boats.
Well, it's been a very
long post but I hope it has been worth it. I am sure you will have some
doubts or unaddressed questions, so feel free to comment and I will try
and respond at the earliest. The Arctic is a wonderful place but is
being significantly affected by the climate change, more than any other
part of the world. The sea ice that is the home of the polar bear is fast melting and according to some estimates might be completely gone by 2030. If you want to give yourself a chance to experience this magical part of our world, the time to go is now.
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