Svalbard (Spitsbergen) is one of Europe’s last wildernesses and home to more polar bears than people. September 14th 2022 We are staying overnight in Dover and will embark tomorrow on the MS Maud in an attempt to get as close to the North Pole without walking over the Arctic ice!
We arrived ahead of schedule just after 6:30 a.m. on a calm sea and an almost silent approach to Dover. Disembarkation was speedy and also ahead of schedule which enabled us to catch the 09:49 train to London and partake of an early lunch, as breakfast was very early. We are now in the Great …
At 08:45 one of our team thought there was another hour in bed because of the change to GMT. He was wrong!! We quickly went to breakfast and after breakfast the Captain addressed us again. “We have winds of force 6, temperature of 9ºC and rising air pressure. The weather will get better during the day. …
At 08:00 a member of the team was awakened by 3 waves from the ongoing storm rattling underneath the ship as if we were going over speed humps. Just before 9:30 a.m. the Captain addressed us and said, “during the night we had experienced 8m waves and storm force 9 – 10 winds which were …
Overnight was stormy beyond measure. In fact things were falling off shelves and above us on Deck 5, things were rolling around in a kitchen. At 09:30 this morning the Captain addressed us all and told us that we had had to leave the Inner Passage during the night and enter the open ocean to …
We arrived in Trondheim at 06:00 in horizontal snow but it improved for our walkabout around 9:00 a.m. Very little is open at this time of day, but with the quiet streets come the opportunities to linger and really see what the buildings, for example, are all about. An example of this on the Bryggen, …
Breaking News … May Day, May Day, but we missed it! At daybreak the Captain reported that at 00:15 the bridge received a May Day call from a fishing boat with two people on board that was in distress and sinking in the Inner Passage off Bodø. We went to its position and were ready …
We arrived at 07:40 having passed beneath Finnsnes Bridge before docking at the small terminal at Fissnes. It was 6.5ºC with a wind chill that made it feel much colder. The bridge links the town with Senja, Norway’s second largest island. It is said that its beauty rivals that of the Lofoten Islands but without the …
Today we docked in Honningsvag at 08:50 with an air temperature of -5.4ºC and what could be when the sun rises a good day. Today, as we mentioned yesterday, sunrise is expected at 09:13 and sunset at 13:47. The first sighting of the port, which is the closest to the Cape, was actually from bed …
We arrived in Tromsø at 08:45 with little daylight, little wind and a temperature of -5ºC. At home we would call this dawn, but work places are already open. Having passed the Arctic Circle and because of the tilt of the Earth away from the sun at this time of year we experience more darkness …