A Saga of ice and snow: Svalbard in late Winter

[janzin]

38 minutes ago, Alexander33 said:

Hmmm, your captain was the same captain we had on the Malmo in 2019.....but we thought his name was Christian!   The Freya certainly is the more well-appointed ship, although the other suited us just fine. 

 

Ha, that's funny about the Captain. His name is Ludvig Kristian as I found him on Facebook. So we are both right

 

Re: the Malmo, we actually got a short tour of it at the end of our trip (when we disembarked in Longyearbyen, we had to wait to get our bags while they re-positioned our ship, so that we wouldn't have to stand in the cold they let us sit in the Malmo's dining area. Honestly I didn't like the Malmo at all, it does have character but it's very dark and claustrophobic, with all the cabins below the main deck and with bunk beds. The dining area was really cramped as well.  I know a lot of folks love it for the old-time character and their outdoor space looked nice but I would only go on the Freya if I returned.
 

Interesting comment from both you and @pomkiwithat you didn’t really use your wide-angle lens very much, as we found that an essential piece of equipment. I’m normally not much into landscapes, but definitely was on that trip. But, then again, for us, we’re talking about August, and from your photos, I guess close accessibility (especially in the zodiacs) to icebergs and other landscape features may not have been as feasible as later in the year?

 

Yes, we never were able to get very close to icebergs (actually we didn't see many) and as for the zodiacs...well wait for the next post
 

Continuing to enjoy hearing about your “saga” with growing anticipation of our own. 
 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by janzin

[TonyQ]

Stunning landscapes and Ptarmigan and very interesting to see your ship

 

[janzin]

The Great Zodiac Fiasco

 

But first, let's talk about the survival suits....and our mostly useless Muck and snow boots.

 

One of the first activities on our first evening on the ship was the safety lecture followed by the demonstration of the survival suit. Before the trip, we had been told that we'd need to wear these suits in the zodiacs, but we didn't really understand what that would entail. It turns out that prior to May 1st, it is required by law to wear these cumbersome full-body suits in the zodiacs. In theory they are supposed to be water-tight and insulating but I daresay in those frigid waters, if you fell in you'd be a goner even with the suit on. Of course on top of the suit you still need a life-jacket!

 

The suits were very difficult to get on by oneself--thankfully Anna was a godsend, helping us get our arms into the extremely tight rubber seals, and getting our feet down into the attached feet, then helping us on (and off) with the waterproof boots.

 

Alan modeling the suit.

 

Back to those boots... The suits cover you toe to neck but what we soon learned was that you need to put your waterproof boots on OVER the attached booties of the suit.  This meant that not only were we not going to be able to wear the expensive, bulky-to-pack boots that we'd all brought for landings, we also could not wear them in the zodiac with the suits. 

 

(Actually a few people did manage to re-purpose them: a few of the men were able to lend their boots to the women (as the larger men's boots would just about fit over the women's bootied feet.) And luckily the ship did have some boots in larger sizes and in the end, everyone found boots to wear, but we were pretty annoyed that we'd packed/bought boots for nothing.  Still, it was hard to stay annoyed as we knew we were suiting up to go out in the Zodiacs and see wildlife!

 

........or not.

 

The first try at the Zodiacs was for a Walrus sighting. We all suited up and got all our photo gear into the dry bags.  We grouped together on the deck.  One Zodiac was lowered into the water...but it wouldn't start! Svein, Oddgeir and the crew fiddled and fiddled to no avail. Well, no worries, there are two more Zodiacs. Second one lowered into the water.  Uh-oh, that one wouldn't start either    More fiddling. Svein swears these are brand new Tohatsu engines and they were tested prior to embarking. The 3rd Zodiac has a Yamaha engine. Maybe that would start? Nope.

 

Well with all this going on we are all freezing our butts off, even in the suits, and eventually Svein says this isn't happening today. They will work on them for the next outing.

 

Frozen Zodiacs.

 

Notice in the photo above there are no engines on the Zodiacs now. They have taken them into the engine room and are working on them inside. And you can see how iced everything was!

 

Next day, another try, I don't recall if it was for more walrus or if it was just a dry run to get us out on the water. They got the engines going in the warmer engine room and they had left them running and they seemed okay, or so we were told.  We get back into our cumbersome suits, pack our dry bags, and are back on the deck.  Guess what...a repeat performance! One by one the Zodiacs are lowered and one by one they won't start, or start but won't stay running.

 

Thank goodness we weren't missing a polar bear!

 

Needless to say we are all very, very unhappy.  Speculation abounds...might it be water in the gas or bad gas?  These engines certainly are meant to run in very cold weather.  At this point we were also a bit leery of getting on the Zodiacs even if they would start...what if they conked out on the water? There is also a rescue boat but who knows if that would start....

 

The engines went back below to be worked on some more.

 

 

To make a long story shorter, it wasn't until the SIXTH day that we finally were able to get out on the zodiacs. We were in a slightly warmer area and the crew finally did get them going. Svein and Oddgeir took the Zodiacs out empty to test them, making sure they were running for quite awhile before returning to bring us on board.

 

Oddgeir testing it out...

 

Finally! We were able to go out for a mother bear and a cub that we'd seen walking along the shore, but they were quite distant and we actually only stayed out for a short while, as the bears headed off into the hills after being spooked by a helicopter that flew overhead (which got us all even more teed-off) and there was no way we would get anywhere close to them.

 

Distant bear taken from the Zodiac (this is a rather well-known mother, Frost, and her cub.)

 

 

Luckily for us, we were able to go out on the water again later that same night and we found the mom and cub again. But that's for another entry.

 

Success! (Photo courtesy of Tom K.)

 

Bottom line, the fact that we could do no landings and missed out on the Zodiac outings for most of the trip was a big disappointment. In the end we only could go out twice, and that was on the very last full day. We are going to see if we can get some kind of recompense from Arctic Wildlife tours for the zodiac fiasco, but we aren't holding our breath.

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by janzin

[kilopascal]

Oh my gosh @janzinhow disappointing that would have been. Loving your photos and trip report. These twin Svalbard reports are not good for keeping me on task at work!

[jmharack]

More about boots, suits and frustration..

@janzinhas described the situation really well. What I would add is the shared frustration. Zodiac trips and landings were things I had really looked forward to, and I wish we'd had more warnings about what it meant to move our trip earlier than originally scheduled.  If I'd known for sure that we'd do no landings, I could have left the Muck boots at home. I live in the cold midwest of the US and I know cold, and I know boots.  I have lots to choose from!  But even the good short winter boots I brought couldn't be worn with those survival suits, because the material for the attached foot/booty part of the suit was so voluminous. I could not possibly get my warm boots over that.  Those short, warm Wisconsin boots were great for time outside on the deck, and certainly for the time in Longyearbyen, walking around town and the harbor, etc (I do wear them all winter at home!).  What I wore most of the time on the boat, however, was good slippers, with good soles!  They were essential for meals, for wandering up to the bridge etc.  A key thing to pack; maybe @janzinwill talk more about critical gear, and I'll chime in again.

 

I think the suits were new and the team just didn't realize that nobody would have footwear that would work with the survival suits. They really didn't have enough bigger boots for everyone, and we were lucky that everyone was generous with the footwear they had brought. I was lucky to borrow some really good warm, insulated boots from one guest.  Your feet do get really cold on the Zodiac in the temperature we experienced, and this is a critical issue.

 

And as I said to my husband, about the frozen Zodiac engines, "Surely they're aware that it's colder up here?" Why were there so many problems with a critical component of the trip?  I had seen them testing the Zodiac boats in Longyearbyen harbor. I wonder if all these problems were due to long periods of engines not being used, due to COVID. As disappointing and frustrating as all this was, the crew was as good as could be hoped for.  They worked really, really hard to get this situation straightened out as best they could, and I trust that the Zodiacs are working well for people going now. 

 

I think we were very, very lucky (and luckier still to have guides very smart and knowledgeable about where in the ice to park) that two bears chose to come close to our ship parked in the ice.  Just brilliant!

 

I share all this for people who might be planning trips so they know what questions to ask ahead of time about landings and footwear..  and want to say again what a great trip it was, even with these challenges! I do think one huge advantage of going earlier in the season was noted above, the opportunity to see wildlife in pristine, snowy conditions.  My dream was to see a polar bear on the ice or snow-covered fields, and it happened!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by jmharack

[kittykat23uk]

Interesting information, thanks for sharing. Such a shame to hear about the zodiacs, but well done for still getting your polar bears!

Edited June 8, 2022 by kittykat23uk

[Galana]

Great sightings but I found it hard to 'like' the thread when the implications of the unpreparedness of suits, boots and boats sunk in. That should not happen on such trips and I hope you get some recompense for their failures.

It won't make up for the disappointments and loss of opportunity but would be some recognition.

Enjoying the narrative.

[pomkiwi]

So frustrating about the zodiacs. Interesting differences in flotation suits - ours were looser fitting than yours and we put our boots on over the suits so getting them on and off was not a problem. They were warm and apparently self inflating if we were immersed in sea water (we did not test this).

[janzin]

2 hours ago, pomkiwi said:

So frustrating about the zodiacs. Interesting differences in flotation suits - ours were looser fitting than yours and we put our boots on over the suits so getting them on and off was not a problem. They were warm and apparently self inflating if we were immersed in sea water (we did not test this).

Maybe I was unclear, we were putting the boots on over the suits, but the suits had sealed feet which were huge, so none of our boots fit.  And the difficulty of getting one's boots on and off was more an issue of hardly being able to maneuver in the suits, I couldn't really bend over in it!

 

I suppose ours were also self inflating in water, but we did not test this either Even so, somehow I can't imagine one would survive more than a couple of minutes in that frigid water, suit or no suit. One's hands and head of course were not enclosed in the suit.  They were warm however!  My torso was never cold in the zodiac, only feet (a bit) but especially hands. I'll talk about clothing gear at the very end of the report.

[shazdwn]

Enjoying your trip report and photos and appreciate the travel insights. Our Arctic trip planned for 2020 was postponed once, then cancelled 😞. I still want to go but don’t know when now. I like the idea of an early trip, but maybe not as early as yours was given the lack of landings and birds

[janzin]

6 hours ago, shazdwn said:

Enjoying your trip report and photos and appreciate the travel insights. Our Arctic trip planned for 2020 was postponed once, then cancelled 😞. I still want to go but don’t know when now. I like the idea of an early trip, but maybe not as early as yours was given the lack of landings and birds

It's hard to balance but I think the prime time to see both birds and still some ice and snow would be late May. By July or august you would not see snow covered landscape but on the other hand you would be able to do some landings.  I am wondering if @pomkiwiwas able to do any landings on his trip (he's not up to that in his report yet!)

[janzin]

Our first bears!

 

Okay, I know everyone is eager to see and hear about wildlife sightings. I'm not going to do a day by day since--as usual--I don't keep a journal and on this trip in particular days and nights seemed to run together; especially with 24 hours of daylight. Some days you'd wake up for a meal and not realize if it was lunch or dinner And for much of many days, there was nothing to see or report on. Especially towards the beginning of the trip; we had one day of solid fog and snow where you could barely make out the land in the fjord. So I will generally post by animal sighting. 

 

Here is a rough map of our northward journey outlined by Svein. This map is as of 4/26, just four days into our voyage. As you can see, we only got so far north before we had to turn around and headed back south. The captain had received the ice report which said that the floe ice was on the move and rapidly heading southwards, so soon be blocking our passage. If we didn't start back south we could get stuck up north, so we had to skeedaddle out of there.  (The faint lines you see drawn across the northern Wijdefjorden fjord is the edge of the fast ice, so indicates as far into the fjord as we could travel.)

 

 

Handily, my Nikon Z9 has built in GPS which worked amazingly well, and I will post a map for each of the bear sightings. (I really love having that built-in GPS!)

 

 

We boarded the ship on June 23 so you can see that our very first bear sighting was in the wee hours of our first overnight---and as you can see, not very far from our starting point of Longyearbyen.

 

 

 

This was a female bear with a young cub, and quite distant. But our very first bears and so thrilling!  We learned that this particular bear was radio collared--you can see the collar if you look closely. She is called Frost and is a well-known bear in the area, covering long distances with her cub. This cub is about three months old.

 

 

We watched them for quite a while as they continued to head uphill, the cub trailing behind. Sometimes the cub would stop and play but momma kept going---cub eventually caught up.

 

 

As they came to the top of a ridge, we could see some reindeer below them and wondered if they would attempt to hunt, but it was clear that the deer were aware of their presence and there was no chance here of a successful hunt.

 

 

 

We watched them for about 45 minutes but eventually they laid down to rest and the guides knew they would not move for quite awhile, so we moved on. But we would spend much more quality time with them many days later.

 

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by janzin

[kilopascal]

The second photo is one I find particularly appealing with the vast landscape and the footprints.

[Galago]

Just catching up with this and, although I followed your trip on Facebook, it's fascinating to read all the detail. The photos are superb - but then I expected that  - and I particularly like the close up of the male Ptarmigan, and who couldn't love the photos of Frost with her cub trotting along behind! Looking forward to the rest of your report.

[pomkiwi]

9 hours ago, janzin said:

It's hard to balance but I think the prime time to see both birds and still some ice and snow would be late May. By July or august you would not see snow covered landscape but on the other hand you would be able to do some landings.  I am wondering if @pomkiwiwas able to do any landings on his trip (he's not up to that in his report yet!)

We did get ashore on every day of our trip but not necessarily for long. It was not always easy to get ashore as the snow and ice formed banks above the water in many places. When we did it often involved wading through knee or thigh deep snow which was a bit challenging. We did manage a couple of longer hikes later in the week.

[janzin]

38 minutes ago, pomkiwi said:

We did get ashore on every day of our trip but not necessarily for long. It was not always easy to get ashore as the snow and ice formed banks above the water in many places. When we did it often involved wading through knee or thigh deep snow which was a bit challenging. We did manage a couple of longer hikes later in the week.

Wow, that's interesting...I'm pretty surprised as we were told (even before they knew about the Zodiac issue) that there would be no landings due to the ice conditions and the snow being too deep.  Not that I'd actually be keen (or even able) to hike through knee or thigh deep snow!

[jmharack]

2 hours ago, pomkiwi said:

We did get ashore on every day of our trip but not necessarily for long. It was not always easy to get ashore as the snow and ice formed banks above the water in many places. When we did it often involved wading through knee or thigh deep snow which was a bit challenging. We did manage a couple of longer hikes later in the week.

Wow, I really would have liked to get out and at least try walking through the snow.  In addition to our exercise going up and down the stairs, there was the fun of getting into and out of the survival suits (often for nothing).  Fika was so good that I needed a little more exercise!  

[shazdwn]

Gorgeous photos of Frost and her cub - they really show the vastness of the landscape.  

[janzin]

Blob bears #3, 4 and 5....and 6

 

The next bear sighting was several days later and much further north (I told you I was going to skip around.)

 

 

We were now in Wijdefjorden, the northernmost fjord we would get to. We'd had some good walrus sightings that morning (walrus post TK.) Around 5 p.m. we found fresh bear tracks in the ice...a bear and apparently two cubs!

 

 

So we knew there were bears nearby. We sailed and scouted along the shore and about an hour later they were spotted.  But very, very far off.  Now this was a very frustrating situation as this would have been the perfect time to get the Zodiacs loaded up and follow along with them...but alas, the Zodiacs were still unusable at this point.

 

So this was the best we could do. This is Judith's photo but actually mine are much worse, at least here you can see that there are two cubs.  For the rest of the trip this trio was known as the "blob bears" for obvious reasons. 

 

 

But, all was not lost. The plan was to spend the night here anchored in the fast ice in the hopes that this bear might wander by...often bears will come very close to a still ship, sometimes right up to it.

 

And yes, around 11:30 p.m. a bear was spotted heading our way!! But not the same bear with the cubs--this one was apparently a young male.

 

 

It was very misty and at from time to time there were snow squalls, but he kept coming...

 

 

Closer...

 

 

and closer...

 

 

 

Closer still....

 

 

And finally...

 

 

Eventually he turned away and started towards the water, until he was too far to photograph. 

 

 

Needless to say, we all went to bed elated that night!

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by janzin

[pomkiwi]

Lovely sightings 

[Galana]

Worth the wait for that close approach.

[Zim Girl]

At least that fantastic close encounter helped to make up for not getting out on the zodiacs.

 

Loving this report, lots of really useful info and as usual, beautiful photos.  The earlier Ptarmigan shots were stunning.

 

[janzin]

thanks @pomkiwi@Galanaand @Zim GirlIt was definitely one of our top moments, but I think there are better ones to come.

 

@Atheneinquired about motion sickness over on @pomkiwi's thread, so I'll make a mention of it here.  We did have a few passages that were quite rocky, although nothing as severe as what @Alexander33had described in his report from a few years ago, thankfully. The very first overnight, in fact, was quite rolling and I had not taken any medication thinking we'd be in the calm fjord. I remember I was lying in the bed feeling really badly and thinking "why oh why did I ever do this, I'll never make it through the week."  And I did spend a bit of time on the bathroom floor!   So after that I did not make that mistake again and took Bonine (meclizine) most days, and then I was fine.  Most of the time when we were in the fjords the water was quite calm but it was during some of the passages in the more open seas that things got a bit rough. Once or twice rough enough for things to fly off the little table in our cabin. But generally that sort of sea didn't last long.

 

Several people were using the "patch" but I don't like the idea of being on continually infused medication and was worried about side effects; the Bonine worked well for me.  Alan, who is not at all prone to seasickness, never took anything at all and was fine.

 

Of course the seas and weather are highly variable so you just don't know...be prepared with your preferred medication!

 

One bit of warning...do not leave camera gear unattended on a table even if you think the sea will be calm! I learned that the hard way...I'd left my camera on a table up in the bridge, then went downstairs for fika.  Suddenly the seas got rough and I ran up those stairs just in time to see my camera roll off and crash to the (thankfully carpeted) floor!! Fortunately it was 100% fine but my heart was in my throat for a moment 

 

[janzin]

I'm trying to push through this report before we leave for Kenya (a week from today!) so here's another entry. 

 

Walruses!

 

We saw walruses almost daily, and there really isn't too much to say about these blubbery creatures as they don't really do much except loll around and poop. At lease we never saw them doing much. They are social and tend to hang out in groups, but the largest group we saw was I think four. So here's just an assortment of Walrus images.

 

Our very first walrus encounter was this large singleton in the ice, a very typical picturesque scenario.

 

 

 

This guy seems to have a headache. Or maybe he's just saluting us.

 

 

They tend to lie around in their poop, which doesn't make for very nice photographs, so here I confess I did a little work to cover it up.

 

 

Better to take portraits.

 

 

 

And sometimes they would wave at us!

 

 

Unfortunately we saw very few seals, usually just a head popping up for a moment; and no Bearded Seal at all, which was another disappointment. We really don't know why this was as it shouldn't have been impacted by the weather or season...just bad luck I guess. I don't have a single seal photo.

Edited June 10, 2022 by janzin

[Athene]

@janzinand @jmharackthank you for useful advice and information. I will surely take some medication against motion sickness with me.