Day 1

It was the first day of my Arctic odyssey and I sat waiting at Oslo airport for my flight to the world’s most northerly landing strip in Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen. I’d just dusted off a ham and lettuce sandwich, and by that I mean a razor thin piece of ham and a solitary lettuce leaf – ten dollars thank you very much, Oslo. I also felt a little thirsty so I purchased a bottle of water at the marginally more reasonable price of $9. The most expensive city in the world was certainly living up to its reputation!

Finally the boarding call was made for our flight and I made my way to the departure gate. It certainly was no ordinary gate – not being happy with contemporary boarding technology these innovative Scandinavians had an electronic fingerprint recognition system. The man at check-in had taken my finger print but I had assumed it was something to do with our American friends’ penchant for over the top counter terrorism measures. I placed my finger on a touchpad and to my amazement not only did it recognize my fingerprint but it also welcomed me by name and gave me a boarding slip – true genius.

The plane was surprisingly large – a 737 or something of that ilk. I had been expecting something resembling a crop duster so to see a regular sized aircraft was quite reassuring. The flight took four hours – a long flight in Europe and similar to the flight time between the east coast and west coast of Australia. Someone told me that if you flip Norway at its southern most point then the northern end would land in Morocco. I’m not sure if that is true but once you’ve taken the flight it certainly seems believable.

I shouldn’t have been surprised really. I knew that Longyearbyen (the capital and only real town in Spitsbergen) had a latitude of around 78 degrees. For those unfamiliar with the wonderful world of latitude the equator has a latitude of 0 and the closer you get to either pole the closer you get to 90 degrees. When I went down to Antarctica the highest latitude we reached was around 64 degrees and we were on Antarctica! The Arctic (and Antarctic) Circle starts at 66 degrees just to give you some further perspective. The Arctic Circle is the point that at least one day of the year never sees the sun set so at 78 degrees we were well beyond the Arctic Circle. The crazy thing about this trip was that we were heading north from Longyearbyen! Longyearbyen is a town of superlatives: the most northerly permanent town in the world, the most northerly airport etc etc.

Anyway, another $10 ham and lettuce sandwich later we finally arrived in Longyearbyen. From there I caught a bus into town and had a walk around as I had a few hours to kill before boarding my ship. Longyerbyen is an old mining town and remnants of its mining past are scattered over the hills above the town. Even the road between the airport and the town still has a string of large towers with large coal buckets dangling from the cables connecting them. Presumably they were switched off when the mine closed and have just been sitting there ever since giving the impression of an abandoned, industrial looking ski lift into town.

The central area of town had a few shops, a couple of hotels and an excellent museum (it was awarded the “best museum in Europe” – ironic considering it would also have to be the most inaccessible museum in Europe for the broad population). I found the most striking thing to be the town’s skidoos – as it was the middle of summer there was no snow in Longyearbyen itself and there were skidoo’s abandoned everywhere. Obviously in the depths of winter their skidoos are essential but in the summer time the locals have no use for them. There were unused skidoos littered all over the place! Most of them were on wooden pallets and had plastic sheeting over them. In some parts grassy areas had been turned into tightly packed and disheveled looking skidoo car parks where it was almost impossible to even walk between all the skidoos!

After my walk around town the time came to board our ship. I strolled down to the dock and up the gangway. The ship had recently been renovated and was very impressive complete with gym, sauna, bar and an extensive library. I had been lucky enough to be upgraded to very nicely appointed cabin and my first task once checked in was to try and figure out how to work my shower. The shower was black with large rounded doors, giving the appearance of a Tardis style time portal machine. I approached with caution – if I was going to be transported back to medieval times I certainly didn’t want it to be transported back to the frozen coastline of Spitsbergen. If it was Fiji or somewhere more hospitable then I wouldn’t have been so concerned. 

In any case I finally discovered that I didn’t need to risk entering the portal/ shower anyway as there was actually a remote control for the shower.  I entertained myself for a few minutes turning the shower on and off, the light on and off and the inbuilt radio on and off (Longyearbyen FM must have been put into administration as I couldn’t seem to pick up any tunes). From there I just had to experiment with the shower heads – there were eight in total, pointing in various directions. I still not sure what they all did and what possible use there was for all these shower heads, unless of course some of them also double as a bidets. Later on in my trip I inadvertently found the sauna function on the shower which completely caught me by surprise. The shower suddenly filled with thick steam and I had to feel my way to the doors in order to escape. I eventually managed to exit, albeit feeling like a freshly cooked pork dumpling.

Once all the passengers were onboard we left port in the early evening. After spending a bit of time on the top deck I decided to call it a night and headed off to bed.

Day 2

The next morning we awoke aside a magnificent glacier creatively named “The 14^th of July glacier”. We jumped in the zodiacs immediately after breakfast and cruised up alongside the glacier, poised with my camera so that I could snap a dramatic collapse of the ice wall should it happen. Of course it never did so I only managed to succeeded in looking at a glacier through a viewfinder for half and hour with nothing to show for it.

Following the glacier we putted over to some nearby cliffs which contained a wide range of birdlife. There were a range of gulls, kittiwakes, guillemots and other birds which all seemed pretty dull to me, although by sounds of what our birding guide told us I think we were supposed to be impressed. I’ve always found it hard to get enthusiastic about birds on these sorts of trips. It’s fine if we’re looking at an albatross or a king penguin but one gull looks more or less the same as another gull to me and I certainly don’t get excited when I seem them on the beach at home.

Anyway, we cruised alongside the cliff in our zodiac and I continued to look through my camera’s viewfinder feigning interest just in case our guide spotted my sense of underwhelming. As I looked along the cliffs I suddenly came across a small group of puffins -with their bright coloured beaks they couldn’t have been anything else. I was probably even more excited than I should have been – due to my tendency to sneak off to the bar during birding lectures my knowledge of all things avian is reasonably limited. I had in fact thought that puffins had become extinct so you can imagine my excitement as I thought I had managed to rediscover a species! My euphoria dampened after being informed by our guide that puffins were actually reasonably endemic in the area (and then found out later that they are also endemic in many other areas of the world – clueless). We finally finished up the zodiac cruise and returned to the ship for lunch.

During lunch the captain fired up the ships engines and we travelled to the small research community known as Ny Alesund. A couple of hundred kilometers north on Longyearbyen the small community has a population of 30-130 people and although not large enough to be considered a town it is the most northerly permanently inhabited community on the planet. The famous Norwegian Roald Amundsen also lived in the community for some years and his house still exists so you can go and visit it. Amundsen’s CV is unrivalled in Polar exploration and he most famously was the first man to the South Pole, beating Englishman Scott by a matter of days. Amundsen also managed to return safely from the South Pole, a feat that Scott and his team didn’t manage. Aside from this, Amundsen was also the first man to traverse the Northwest Passage (the route between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans over the top of Russia) and he was also the first man to fly across the North Pole which he did in a balloon that actually left from Ny Alesund. The tower from which he tethered the balloon still sits just outside the town and so we obviously walked out to visit it, flanked by guides with rifles should a polar bear decide to amble by.

Following our excursion into the town we returned to the ship and had dinner. After dinner I headed to the bar and shared the evening with a bunch of fellow travelers. Owing to the fact that the sun never sets during summer in the Arctic it certainly made for an interesting drinking session. When I visited Antarctica the sun didn’t ever fully set but it did hover just above or below the horizon at night at least giving the impression of dusk for much of the night. As far north as we were there certainly wasn’t this luxury and around 2 am the bar finally closed whilst the sun continued to shine persistently outside as if it were still mid afternoon (in fact it always felt like mid afternoon as the sun moved in a circle fashion in the sky – only giving you the impression of 2pm from different directions over a 24 hour period). It felt like a never ending afternoon drinking session and it probably would have been if the barman hadn’t sensibly sent us all back to our cabins.

Day 3

The next morning I was obviously a little dusty. After breakfast we jumped in the zodiacs again. We had headed further north overnight and we were now at the site of an old whaling station from the 1600’s. Apparently when whalers first arrived in the area it was difficult to navigate ships as the whales were so numerous that they just filled the waters. Obviously after hundreds of years of whaling the whale numbers are a fraction of what they used to be, although numbers have recently begun to rise again.

Getting ashore we could make out the remains of brick buildings and the blubber pots were still visible along the beach. The whales were cut up and then the blubber rendered down in these large pots. Knowing that these remains had been eroded significantly over the years I had decided not to bring my camera with me on the landing. We landed and walked about the beach about 100 metres and sure enough there was a bull walrus sitting on the beach right in front of us. A two tonne slug with fangs and I managed to leave my camera behind – fanbloodytastic.

Further up the beach we stumbled across some timber that had washed up on the beach. There was some kind of large timber mechanism on the beach which looked like a gear or winch for an old wooden ship – it certainly didn’t look like it something from recent human history. The guide said that many ships have been stuck in the ice over the centuries and it’s possible that this timber has been frozen for hundreds or even thousands of years, preserved in ice before breaking free and drifting to this beach. I guess we’ll never know but it certainly looked like something that should be in a museum rather than just sitting in the sand on an isolated Arctic beach.  We then went for a walk further up the beach and across the tundra.  Our guide today was a plant specialist and he seemed insistent on pointing out any minute flower clinging onto the rocks in the area. My midnight drinks in the sun were starting to come back to haunt me and as I couldn’t muster the energy to be polite and provide further mock enthusiasm for the latest drooping tufted saxophage our guide had found (one of the few plants I can remember for it’s obvious toilet humor potential and it was certain given some mileage at the bar during the evenings). In the end I wandered back to the zodiacs and on returning to the ship treated myself to a nana nap.

In the early afternoon we travelled along the northern coast of Spitsbergen and stopped for a few hours in a fiord with a couple of spectacular looking glaciers scattered around us. We took some zodiacs to the shore and some of us climbed the moraine (or side) of one of the glaciers. It was a bit of a scramble but once at the top there were fantastic views down the fiord.

Given my hangover and that we had an early start in the morning I headed to bed reasonably early to help prepare for the following day. It was lucky that I did because the following day turned out to be one of the most spectacular days I’ve ever been fortunate enough to witness. At some point that evening we crossed over 80 degrees latitude for a short while before finally starting to head south again. At our furthest point north we were within about 1,000 km of the North Pole and almost within sight of the summer limit of the arctic sea ice.

Day 4

Our friendly expedition leader’s voice came over the PA system at 5:45 am imploring us to wake up and get down to the zodiacs. I had already fiddled with the knobs on the PA system in my room and despite my best efforts I was unable to disable it. So here I was at 5:45am in the morning and without means to silence our expedition leader I was forced succumb to the increasing insistent announcements regarding our imminent departure in the zodiacs. Once I reached the mud room I found out that we were going to see more bird cliffs – I stood for a minute considering if I should just head back up to bed and hope the announcements would go away eventually but as I was already kitted up took the plunge and jumped into the zodiacs. It’s lucky I did because for all my reluctance for bird spotting these cliffs were one of the most amazing places I had ever seen.

Sitting in the zodiac as we travelled away from the ship there certainly did appear to be quite a few birds around. At first we headed in the direction of a glacier and I took a few photos as we approached. At some point became bored with the glacier and so started looking around a little more. As I did I looked to my left and instantly had my breath taken away. Next to the glacier the cliffs stretched off into the distance and innumerable birds darted from the cliffs out to sea and back again to their nests.  The cliffs themselves were spectacular and seemed to continue upward endlessly, the rock eroded and cracked leaving towering spires and deep, vaulted caves.

Our zodiac driver turned us towards the cliffs and as we drifted along we floated underneath all the birds and the cliffs that they were nesting in. Spartan battle scenes came to mind, the type where archers would fire such multitudes of arrows into the sky that they blocked the sun – It was lucky as I had forgotten to put on my sunscreen. There were so many birds that it just boggled the mind – I took photograph after photograph but on later viewing none of them could capture the sheer scale. We must have floated along for almost an hour and despite my birding apprehension I wasn’t bored for a second.  Huddled away on the northern coast of Spitsbergen this area gets so few visitors and it’s a shame because it seemed to me that it should be one of the world’s natural wonders. I was told later that there are approximately 120,000 birds on the cliffs – apparently it’s not quite the largest bird colony in the world but it certainly has to be the most dramatic.

We had a belated breakfast on our return and then the ship started heading south and for the first time on this trip we headed into pack ice – polar bear country.  Being on a ship negotiating through pack ice was a magical experience in itself. The ship was bumped and bruised by a biggish iceberg every now and then and after some of the larger bumps you could see icebergs smeared with bright blue paint drifting past – something for the ship’s Engineers to touch up later.

It was a beautiful clear day and the sun sat midway in the sky behind us, causing the pack ice around us to glisten in the smooth glassy water. Conditions were near perfect – everyone knew it and was out on deck poised with their cameras. On our zodiac landings we had gone ashore in a series of small groups but only now that everyone was together out on deck did I start to appreciate the full spectrum of camera kit that everyone had aboard. There appeared to me to be three distinct groups: The first being the bulk of the passengers who like me had a digital SLR with the more or less standard issue twin lens kits – the “Standard Group”. After the standard SLR group you had the “Hard Core, Wannabe National Geographic Types”. Some of the lenses being pulled out by this group looked like they would be more at home in an astrology class rather than being attached to a camera housing. As always there were the short balding males with the big penis extension lenses but surprisingly there were more standard sized men and women flashing their lens artillery about too. In fact some of the men weren’t even balding!!!

At the other end of the spectrum were the “point and shot” group. At almost any other tourist spot on the planet these people would have no doubt normally held their own and although some of their camera’s were undoubtedly able to take fantastic pictures this group tended to shuffle about in the background, sheepishly taking out their cameras and quickly snapping a photo and returning the camera to their pockets before any of their fellow passengers notice that they had the audacity to come on such a trip without spending large sums of money on a glitzy camera. A ludicrous state of affairs really but standing on the top deck I looked over the bow and watched with amusement as everybody jockeyed for the best photography positions on the front of the ship. The National Geographic types seemed to be winning as they pushed their way to the front of the bow, the “Point and Shot” types left to stand towards the back holding their cameras in the air trying to get  a photo over the top of the scrum.

As we drifted along we saw a bit more wildlife littered about the ice – firstly a few bearded seals lazing on the floating ice and eventually a walrus. The National Geographic types busied themselves as we approached the walrus making sure they had their aperture and shutter speeds adjusted correctly. We drew right alongside the walrus who was lying on his side not looking the least bit interested in the motley bunch of humans approaching him. Finally he rolled over and in doing so displayed his enormous droopy, tufted saxophage. One of the National Geographic type girls next to me was looking through her super lens at the time and let out a gasp. She had presumably never seen such strong foliage.

We saw some walruses on a beach later in the afternoon and so went ashore to view them. It was an ideal situation as the walruses moved about and showed off for the cameras with the pack ice in the background. Then suddenly some whales drifted past. You couldn’t have planned it any better.

We sat down for dinner and although the day had been spectacular you could sense a certain amount of disappointment in the air. The pack ice is the natural home of the polar bear and today was considered our best opportunity to see a Polar bear – of course we hadn’t spotted a single one. The polar bears coat makes them almost look yellow against the white of the ice and we all spent the afternoon scanning the ice for that elusive yellow dot. At one point one of the crew thought they had spotted a bear through their binoculars. The ship was promptly turned around but after a half hour of searching all we managed to find was a chunk of slightly discoloured ice sitting on an iceberg. I felt sorry for the expedition crew – you know that the polar bear is the major draw card for these sort of trips and there would obviously be some very disgruntled passengers should we not be able to find a polar bear at some point. The weight of responsibility was evident as we had dinner – the expedition crew remained on deck and in the bridge to continue the search.

After dinner I headed to the bar with the usual suspects. The mood was pretty somber and the musician played melancholy songs which only helped to dampen the mood further. After a while everyone became a little more lubricated and we forgot about our absent polar bear friends and the evening began to liven up. Suddenly the expedition leader came over the PA system and announced that a polar bear had been spotted straight ahead. The madness that ensued would have been a sight to behold for an observer. The bar was vacated almost instantly. Like just about everyone else I ran towards the stairs so that I could go down to my cabin and collect my camera. As we ran out a woman with camera in hand panicked as she tried to open the door from the bar onto the deck without success. She was trying to open it in the wrong direction and I’m not sure if she ever managed to make it outside or not. The poor musician was left singing to himself and the barman in an empty room.

Down the stairs we plunged. How there wasn’t an injury I will never know. The stairs on a ship like this are more like ladders in their steepness and as a collective pack we threw ourselves down them head first. Some people jumped the bottom portion of the stairs altogether. Reaching my room I grabbed the camera and returned to the top deck. At this point the bear was still some distance away and although some people had binoculars and could spot the bear the rest of us used our camera lenses to scan the horizon. People seemed to be concerned that the bear may swim off and so there were cameras clicking away incessantly mostly without being completely sure where the bear was exactly. It was like a watching a company of frenzied soldiers fire randomly at an unseen enemy in the night. I certainly snapped about ten photos of the wrong iceberg before finally sorting myself out and waited until we got a little closer.

The ship slowly edged towards the bear and like the walrus she looked at us with indifference, bordering on distain. As we drew alongside her the camera clicking crescendo drew to its inevitable climax. What must have been the world’s bravest bird landed behind her and nibbled a few of droppings the bear had presumably deposited recently. We spent some time next to the bear in what was more or less an extracted group stare off with the bear. At one point, she did stand to have a bit of a look around and then promptly sat herself back down again. We were at least ten kilometers out to sea at this point so presumably she was looking for dry land, realised that she a long way out and so decided stay where she was, wait, and see where the currents take her.

Three hundred odd photos later the ships engines fired up again and we left the polar bear to her own devises. We all returned to the bar, this time euphoric. Many of the guides joined us the relief of the polar bear find obvious on their faces. The barman was still there but apparently the musician had left much earlier, heartbroken that his audience would dump him so readily once a piece of wildlife came along. The night continued in celebration of the day we’d had and we clearly hadn’t learned from our last drinking effort as we finally made our way back to our cabins early in the morning hours.

Day 5

The morning was quite slow for me. I made it up for breakfast and was trying to will myself to make it out for the morning zodiac landing. As we were eating breakfast our expedition leader came over the PA and said that we were going to land so that we could have a bit of a walk around in the tundra. Apparently there was no real chance of seeing animals. This landing just seemed to have “pass” written all over it so I headed back to my cabin and dozed for the rest of the morning.

In the afternoon we took a visit to some old hunting (trapping) huts. The huts were still in use and as there was no one using them at the time we had quick look inside – certainly a pretty simple existence! Just down from the huts was a pack of walrus. A couple of the walrus were playing in the waves that were splashing on the shoreline and as expected a fresh camera’s clicking frenzy resulted.

Further along the beach was a walrus graveyard. There seemed to be the bones of thousands of walruses along the beach – a lasting memory to the mass eradication of wildlife that happened back in the commercial hunting times.

We returned to the ship and the hot topic of discussion was that we were to be given the chance to jump off the ship and into the icy arctic water the following evening. Most people didn’t intend to take the plunge but after a couple of beers and in a moment of madness I for some reason stated that anyone under 40 basically was really duty bound to do the jump. At first this idea was met with a lukewarm reception but over the coming hours I managed to get a few takers via some strong-arm tactics and once there was a majority of willing participants the rest of the group came around too. After my bullying I certainly couldn’t back out of the swim now so I went to bed earlyish in the hope of preparing myself as best as possible for the next day.

Day 6

The next morning we took a zodiac ride out to a towering cliff with a variety of birdlife which was pretty well uneventful. In the afternoon we take another search for polar bears with no result. The wind also got up a little so unfortunately the polar swim was postponed – I must admit that I was a little relieved.

Day 7

In the afternoon we finally managed to spot another Polar bear. It was on the shore but as the ship couldn’t get too close we had to view it from afar. The bear walked back and forth for a while and then finally decided to sit still. As the bear wasn’t moving the expedition leader decided that it would be worth getting us all into the zodiacs and heading towards the shore to get a little closer. It took 20 minutes to get this organised and once we were all in the zodiacs the bear was good enough to have stayed exactly where he was. As we approached the bear he got up and started to move. He disappeared quickly over a ridge into the next bay. In the zodiacs we rounded the next head and saw him immediately. Amazingly as we came towards the beach in the centre of the bay he came down as if to greet us. We were only ten metres or so from the bear at this stage and the camera clicking frenzy started again.  All the flashing and clicking must have got a bit irritating for the poor fella as he then turned on his heel and after sniffing around a nearby trapper’s hut he headed off into the distance.

We returned towards the ship, all of us elated after our close encounter. Closer than we had expected and we afterwards found out that it was also the closest many of the expedition crew had been to a bear too. As we started boarding the ship someone yelled out. They had spotted yet another bear nearby! We turned immediately and went to view the second bear – another amazing close encounter.

In the end we were in zodiacs for some time. I’m not sure how long exactly – in all the excitement I didn’t put on as many layers as I should have and as we boarded the ship I realised I was actually freezing cold. As ended the mudroom I heard over the expedition radio that once all the zodiacs were back on board we were going to do the polar swim. What timing – I was shivering with cold already. A jump in that water was likely to turn me instantly into an chad ice cube and following my frozen metamorphous I was likely to just bob off into the icy blue never to be seen again. I headed up to the lounge area and prepared myself a warm drink. That didn’t seem to be doing the trick so considered what else I could use. I had purchased a small bottle of Jägermeister at the airport and I considered that this may help so nipped off to my cabin to get it. I had a nip and that seemed to help more than the coffee. A few nips more and I really started to warm up. Strangely my nerves seemed to settle a little too.

So the call for the swim was finally made on the PA system and we were to meet in the mudroom in five minutes. I returned to my cabin again and put on my board shorts. Once the door from the mudroom to the outside pontoon was open the mudroom is pretty cold so I put on some tracksuit pants and a jumper to keep me warm and headed below deck. When I got down there everyone was standing in a line but to my surprise everyone was standing there in their swimming gear. Not a jumper or any clothing of warmth in sight. What the hell is wrong with all these people! Many of my fellow travelers were already in the line standing there semi naked. Not a great situation – I couldn’t back out of the swim and obviously everyone else was impervious to the cold or they had already completely lost their minds.

One by one everyone took the jump to varying degrees of screeching. Finally it came to my turn and I descended the steps and took the designated launching spot on the platform. Up above all the sane passengers watched from the upper decks, all with camera’s in hand ready to capture the madness. With all these camera’s poised I couldn’t back out now. I certainly felt like a condemned man about to walk the plank.

So, I jumped with all the grace of flailing bovine. I broke the water and that didn’t seem too bad but then the numbness hit. It was excruciatingly cold so I ascended and broke the surface of the water.  I felt like my breath had been completely taken away. I gasped for air madly – later I found out that everyone has this experience in the extreme cold but at the time I presumed that my testacies had been so offended by the submersion that they rapidly migrated to my neck in order to suffocate my larynx. I climbed the ladder and re-entered the mudroom. Surprisingly the mudroom seemed warm after the jump. I expected to be reaching for a towel or anything with warm but in reality the air temperature seemed so much warmer to the air temperature meaning that we could stand there quite comfortably.

As it turned out my strong armed tactics were kindly returned by one of my travelling companions, Rob and a couple of us took a second jump. On my second jump I realised I needed to do something a little more creative and as such I this time jumped in head first, surfaced and then did a few strokes of backstroke. Happy with my effort I stopped and looked up to see how far the platform was away – pretty far. At that point I remembered that we had just seen two polar bears nearby and that polar bears are fantastic swimmers (they spend so much time in the water and ice that they are actually classified as marine mammals). I had a quick glance around but there didn’t seem to be any bears within swiping distance. My Polar Bear fears alleviated I then flashed back to my image of a chadpopsical and quickly swam back to the pontoon.

The swim over and done with we all decided that a drink or ten were in order to celebrate our achievement and as such there was only one location to end to for the rest of the evening. As I left to catch my flight half way through the following night it was really my last night out with my newly acquired drinking buddies and so a suitable send off was required.

Day 8

I obviously was quite excited about my icy baptism as I got a little carried away that evening and awoke to the call to breakfast feeling very uneasy. I say the “call” to breakfast (or any meal for that matter) has always been of primary importance to me so it’s much like the call to prayer and I’ll normally attend promptly in the manner of a piously adherent disciple.

I tried to get up but the rocking of the ship made me feel very uneasy to say the least. After a herculean effort I finally managed to get myself dressing and up to the dining room five minutes before breakfast finished. At that stage there was one egg and a couple of sawdust injected sausages left. I had some egg but as I persevered with the sausage it tasted more like sawdust and less of anything resembling meat.  I left my meal and returned to my cabin when I quite happily slept away the rest of the morning.

After my sleep I did feel a little better but not good enough to bother with our last excursion that was planned for that afternoon. I decided to enjoy the peace and quiet onboard and read a little of one of the three books I’d brought to read onboard but and invariably not touched.

In the evening our little group managed to cram around a large table so that we could all have one last meal together before we set off in our different ways. The scenery, weather and wildlife had been spectacular during the days but the company had also been fantastic and I was certainly going to miss some of the banter that had developed of the past week or more. Following dinner I had a few last drinks at the bar and then headed to bed around 10pm, hoping to get in a few hours sleep before I was to be rudely awaken by the expedition staff at 2:30 am for my transfer to the airport. I got a little sleep my sleep patterns being as distorted as they were soon woke up again around 1pm and couldn’t get back to sleep. Knowing that the scene in the bar upstairs would be out of control at this point I stayed in my cabin, although it before long the madness came to me with a bunch of them deciding to come down and crash my cabin. So as it panned out I made a belated return to the bar for my last hour or so and following and hour of drunken goodbyes I finally had to leave. I grabbed my bag and waved to everyone in the bar as I boarded the bus. As the bus pulled out I remember seeing a very drunk man giving me a fitting final salute, arse cheeks resting showing between the deck’s balustrade – Thanks for that final memory Co-Co!

So all in all a fantastic trip. A great ship, great company, great expedition staff and some of the most amazing traveling I’ve ever had.