As I mentioned yesterday, the captain and expedition leader decided to do something unusual: take the ship as far north as it could go before hitting the Arctic icepack. We made it to 82° 00′ 00″, and there we stopped and had a celebration. For this was not only as far north that this ship had ever gone, but as far north as anybody on board, including the naturalists and sailors, had ever gone. I’m told it’s rare, even in the summer season, to get this high. In winter, of course, this is impossible, as the ice is frozen solid as far south as Svalbard.
There was a celebration on the top (helicopter) deck with champagne, a group photo (including one with a drone, as we’re outside the Svalbard waters where drones are prohibited), and some of the guides dressed as seals, walruses, and polar bears.
Well, here’s yours truly as far north as I’ll ever go (click photos to enlarge, though I’ve degraded them by 85%). We’re still several hundred km, I think, from the North Pole (I ask a diligent reader to calculate the distance).
. . . and the sea ice at that latitude. Good for polar bears, which can swim over 100 km, leap from floe to floe, and look for seals (or, on rare occasions, whale carcasses). A blue whale passed by the ship during breakfast, but I could see only the ripples on the surface; it did not breathe while we passed.
I think this is an appropriate moment for this over-used word :
EPIC
Congratulations!…. umm.. also an over-used word?.. who cares!
🧊🧊🧊
Summitting/Cresting the top of the world! I wonder how many more years of warming before your ship can declare 90N on a regular Summer itinerary.
Adding :
“Because it’s there”
I leave it to reader’s to look up this stirring quote’s background. It’s also a Michael Hedges composition for harp guitar.
Good to find this sort of content in my email…glad it’s so cool for you.
Any Santa Claus sightings?
Congratulations!
Congratulations Jerry! I was on a research cruise to Svalbard in summer 2002, covering much the same ground as you seem to be doing. We made it to 81 degrees north, so you’ve beaten me by a degree!
That ice is ominous! 81 degrees north is very latitudinous!
Each line of latitude is 111 km apart, so 8 degrees of latitude from 82 degrees to the pole at 90 degrees is 888 km from the pole. A lot of ice!
Onwards – our polar pioneer. ONWARDS!
This is a great trip so far. I bet there’s almost no darkness up there, like reading the newspaper outside at midnight (my friend from St. Petersburg).
Do they have blackout curtains on the ship? Hard to sleep I think…
all the best,
D.A.
NYC
Great stuff! Though you may have unwittingly been even further north than there in a plane flying a polar route at some point in your life.
What expeditionary company are you travelling with and from what port ?
Sounds like you are having a great trip. I’m jealous!
When I was on a ship that crossed into the Arctic Circle the crew dressed as Vikings and performed a ceremony which involved you drinking a shot of something and then putting a ladle full of ice down your back. Thankfully, I was travelling on my own so I didn’t have to get involved in the ritual, but I still got the certificate 😁
Comment by Greg Mayer
894 km from the Pole, fide a measurement with Google Earth’s line tool.
GCM
Cool photos! I am suitably envious! Enjoy!