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Day 1
Arrive at Reykjavik Airport (REK) where you will be met by a representative and transferred to your hotel. This evening, enjoy a welcome drink and meet your fellow expeditioners at the pre-embarkation briefing. The rest of the evening is at your leisure.
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Day 2
This morning, your luggage will be collected from the hotel and transferred directly to the port and delivered to your cabin ahead of your arrival on board. Any valuables or personal items should be kept with you throughout the day. Enjoy some free time to explore Iceland's capital city of Reykjavik, before boarding the Greg Mortimer late afternoon. You will have time to settle into your cabin before the important safety briefings out on deck. We set sail in the early evening.
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Day 3
In the Denmark Strait, we sail towards Greenland. Keep a lookout for whale blows and the many seabirds that trail our ship in the ever present Arctic winds. Enjoy the time out on deck and soak up the fresh ocean air.
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Day 4
Enjoy informative and entertaining presentations from the Expedition crew and learn about the ice formations, seabirds and wildlife of this frozen wilderness.
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Day 5
As we approach East Greenland, we may encounter more pack ice, offering a chance to see seals and a variety of seabirds, including northern fulmar and migratory Brunnichs guillemots. This stretch of coastline is ripe for exploration, with its many secrets locked in place by drift ice for up to eight months of the year.
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Day 6
The strong icy currents have isolated East Greenland from the Polar Basin, attracting large numbers of fish, seals and whales. Climatic conditions and the concentration of ice in the vicinity, often create thick morning fog that vanishes with the onset of the midday sun. Our experts will inform and entertain us with fascinating discussions on plants, animals, ice, and early explorers like Nansen, Andree and Scoresby. The expedition team, who have made countless journeys to this area, will use their expertise to design your voyage from day-to-day. This allows them to make the best use of prevailing weather and ice conditions and maximise on wildlife opportunities.
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Day 7
Over the coming days, be prepared to experience ice, lots of it. East Greenland contains some of the Arctic's most impressive scenery. Deep fjords and narrow channels, flanked by sharp ice-clad peaks up to 2,000m. Glaciers create gigantic icebergs that drift through the fjord system creating breath-taking scenes and the landscape is filled with multi-coloured tundra, home to musk-oxen and Arctic hare.
We will explore Scoresbysund, the largest fjord system in the world - a spectacular place that needs to be seen to be believed. North of Scoresbysund are Kong Oscar and Kaizer fjords, two of the most significant fjord systems in all of Greenland. This area is rich in wildlife, owing to the fertile volacanic soil mountains that protect this area from strong winds.
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Day 8
We will attempt to enter the remote and rarely-visited Kaiser Franz Josef Fjord, offering countless opportunities for exploration within the Northeast Greenland National park. Cruising through Kong Oskar Fjord, we will marvel at the geological beauty of the mountains. We will then head south along the coast of Liverpool Land, with our passage dependent on ice conditions and then we aim to reach Scoresbysund, to explore the the World's largest fjord.
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Day 9
We plan to visit the remote Inuit community of Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresby Town) and hike across the tundra in search of summer villages occupied 3,000 years ago by Eskimo. This area provides excellent opportunities for sea-kayaking in it's maze of calm, interconnecting waterways. You may spot Arctic hare, musk oxen and seal and if you are extremely lucky, polar bear or narwhal. Although due to the local hunting traditions, these two sightings are very rare.
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Day 10
Places that we may land along the East coast include Cape Humboldt - a stunning bay on Ymer Island, Seftrom Glacier, where you can enjoy Zodiac crusing and kayaking in this beautiful area and where colourful Arctic flora adorns the tundra ground. Sydkap offers good walking and delightful views across the sound and various fjords within this area such as Romer fjord, Hare Fjord and Nordvest, will offer you the opportuny to kayak or Zodiac cruise amongst glacial formations and icebergs, while taking in the airshow above as a variety of seabirds fly in the skies overhead.
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Day 11
Over the next two days at sea, enjoy informative and entertaining lectures from our expert expedition team including naturalists and historians, before reaching Svalbard's eastern coast.
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Day 12
As we cruise east across the Greenland Sea - the main outlet of the Arctic Ocean - we may encounter whales feeding in the productive waters of the north. Sightings of fin whales are common and blue whales have been seen in more recent years.
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Day 13
Over the next ten days, the Svalbard Archipelago is ours to explore. There are many exciting places we can choose to visit and the order in which we see these, will vary from trip-to-trip. Svalbard offers unpoiled, raw arctic wilderness at its best. With majestic mountains of jagged peaks, iridescent sea ice, countless glaciers and superb wildlife-viewing opportunities.
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Day 14
Along the northeast coast of Spitsbergen we enter a different world a polar desert. If ice conditions allow we will pass south through the narrow Hinlopen Strait. The Strait is flanked by creamy coloured slabs of rock that are rich in fossils, as we will discover for ourselves when we go ashore. We may visit Alkefjellet in the Strait, where a series of one-hundred metre high dolerite towers are home to nearly a million nesting Brunnich's guillemots, known as the penguins of the north, who occupy every available nook and cranny.
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Day 15
Elsewhere, we seek out eider ducks and geese and hope to spot Arctic fox and the beautiful ivory gulls. Polar bears are common in the Hinlopen area. Normally a few summer bears can be spotted on the islands or around the bird cliffs. In spring, Hinlopen Strait is full of life, when the seabirds return. There is lots of noise out in the sound, as the little auk, Brünnich's guillemot and northern fulmar all make their presence known. Most birds go to the western part of the Strait, from Lomfjorden and southwards. Alkefjellet to the south of Lomfjorden is the largest bird cliff in the area, with several hundred thousand black-legged kittiwakes and as many Brünnick's guillemots. There are also several colonies of northern fulmar in the area, and little auks nests scattered in and around the Strait.
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Day 16
In the far north at Nordvesthjornet and Raudfjorden, Willem Barentsz and his crew discovered new land on 17 June, 1596. They described the land as being 'rugged for the most part and steep, mostly mountains and jagged peaks, from which we gave it the name of Spitsbergen.' In the centuries that followed, the large number of bowhead whales found here attracted whalers from the Netherlands and various other countries, and the area became a place of high activity, both on the shore and in the surrounding sea. This is why Nordvesthjornet offers the largest concentration of cultural artefacts on Spitsbergen, all dating back to this first era of the exploitation of Svalbard's natural resources.
Located along the north coast, Woodfjorden, Liefdefjorden and Bockfjorden are rarely visited places.This is the land of contrasts. By the large, flat Reinsdyrflya there is a great fjord system that stretches towards several mountain ridges of varying shapes and ages, including alpine summits of very old granite, majestic red mountains of Devonian sandstone, cone-shaped remnants of three volcanoes and even hot springs. Large glacier fronts calve into the sea, while polar bears are busy hunting for ringed seals and sweeping the islets for birds' eggs. Walk on smooth raised beach terraces to a superb viewpoint, or hike in the mountains on the tundra where pretty brightly coloured wildflowers and lichen grow and where reindeer graze. We may visit trapper huts of yesteryear where Russian Pomors would hunt and survive the cold harsh winters, all while remaining alert for wandering polar bears and their cubs.
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Day 17
East of Spitsbergen are two large islands called Barentsoya and Edgeoya. The area has a rich wildlife, especially when it comes to polar bears, reindeer, walrus, seabirds and geese. In the west of Edgeoya, there are cultural remains from European whaling. Edgeoya and Tusenoyane were the main area for Russian overwintering hunting between 1700 and 1850. Traces of Norwegian overwintering, hunting, as well as newer scientific research, can also be found. The area has been a nature reserve since 1973. The beautiful fertile plains of Sundeneset and the area between Spitsbergen and the smaller islands of Barentsoya and Edgeoya, are a major polar bear migration route. The spongy ground is richly covered with bright green mosses, a variety of delicate and colourful flowers, particularly the yellow marsh (bog) saxifrage, various mushrooms, fungi, clear bubbling streams and small tarns. Tiny (micro) flowers such as Mouse Ears grow in Spitsbergen, creating faerie-like mossy rock gardens. We explore this beautiful terrain on foot, marvelling at the contrast between the colourful soft ground and the barren, rocky, terrain from further north.
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Day 18
We hope to cruise along the west coast of Spitsbergen, visiting intriguing places like Magdalenefjorden, located inside the Northwest Spitsbergen National Park. According to historical sources, Magdalenefjorden was first used by the English in the early days of the whaling era. They erected a land station on the headland and named the area Trinity Harbour. The station was closed in 1623. The spectacular alpine scenery is lined with jagged mountain peaks, to which Spitsbergen (pointed mountains) owes its name. The topography of the area is mostly rocky, shorelines are covered with stones and walking here can be challenging. Vegetation in the area is limited to mosses and lichens which grow near to the bird colonies. Little auks breed here in large numbers in the scree slopes everywhere around Magdalenefjorden. Amazingly, reindeer occasionally roam around on mossy slopes and polar bears as well as walrus are regularly seen here.
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Day 19
The Svalbard Nature Reserve of Nordaust is the northernmost high-Arctic part of Svalbard. The fjords here are covered in ice, and drift ice floats around the islands for most of the year and glaciers cover large areas of the terrain. This is the kingdom of the polar bear and walrus. It has been protected as a nature reserve since 1973.
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Day 20
Nordaustlandet is the second largest island in Svalbard. The two large ice sheets of Austfonna and Vestfonna cover large areas of the island. The landscape is open and majestic with different types of landscapes, from the prominent fjords in the west and north to the massive glacier front facing east and south. From a distance, Nordaustlandet appears cold, unfriendly and unproductive. However, many places are unexpectedly lush, especially close to the bird cliffs. The vegetation on land and the production in the sea have together formed a foundation for the terrestrial and marine wildlife, creating hunting opportunities for people. There are fewer signs of human activity on Nordaustlandet than in the rest of Svalbard, although there are cultural remains from Russian and Norwegian overwintering trapping, from scientific research and expeditions and from World War II.
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Day 21
If you have chosen an optional activity such as kayaking, you will have the option to enjoy the activity whenever conditions allow.
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Day 22
We will aim to have two excursions a day, either exploring by Zodiac or out on land. While ashore, we will hike on lush tundra where brightly-coloured summer wildflowers grow, walking in the company of grazing reindeer. From our Zodiacs, we can observe the towering birdcliffs alive with nesting sea birds, including Svalbard's little auk colony. We will have the opportunity to photograph the stunning iceshapes and also the passing wildlife, as we cruise past seal, whale and walrus - hauled out on giant ice floes.
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Day 23
Without a doubt our goal is to encounter the majestic polar bear on the pack ice, from the safety of our ship. The expedition crew are as keen as you are to find them and are on constant watch to spot these dazzling creatures.
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Day 24
During the early morning we sail into Longyearbyen. Upon disembarkation you can enjoy a tour of the town, visiting the Svalbard Museum and Galleri Svalbard, Svalbard Church, Nybyen - or new town, a few of the coal mines situated here, before boarding your bus for your transfer to the airport.
