TravelTales: Svalbard 10 Day Sailing Adventure

Semi Abandoned Russian coal mining towns, polar bears, glaciers, and Arctic sailing…OH MY

Daniel

7/16/20267 min read

More often than not, Lauren and I have no idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into. I think its half the fun. There is always a moment where the recognizable smile from Lauren of “what the fuck?” wrenches my own smile open from ear to ear. Although she is still asleep as I write this, I know that hilarious questioning smile of hers is right around the corner. The reason I’m up early writing this is because the cohort of 50-60 husky mushing dogs just outside our door started howling in unison. Lauren is still asleep because the midnight sun again kept us awake well past any semblance of a bedtime. Don’t tell the mushing husky team living 10 meters away that information because I’m pretty sure they never sleep. I stumbled my way out of our cabin that has no sink, no bathroom, and no running water. I squinted at the glaring sun as I passed the howling huskies on my way down to the less than 2 meter tall shack that had a hole in the wood with a bucket underneath to deposit my morning bodily waste. Was this in the ad? No? Are we outside an established town and in the vast wilderness? No. Just another “lodge” in Norway. Just another attempt to find the cheapest place in town to stretch our already thinning bank account to continue the journey around this hurtling rock for as long as possible. Would I change it? Absolutely not. It’s half the fun. But this is just the end of the story. Minimize the screen if you’re reading this at work, go grab another cup of coffee, and settle into the story of our northern expedition.

Our first few weeks in Norway were spectacular and what was around the corner I think was always at the forefront of mine and Lauren’s minds. It was the 100%, absolute first thing we booked for our trip. A northern expedition through the Svalbard archipelago aboard the 17.50 meter sailing yacht Azimuth. We, again, didn’t really know what to expect. We were worried if it was even a real company. After the initial deposit, they wanted a bank wire transfer in the $1000’s of dollars to settle up. Every email came in Polish. We were sure at one point we’d been had. Due to flight schedules, we landed at the northernmost airport in the world in Longyearbyen a few days before the trip. The northernmost bus ride through the old coal mining town turned tourist stop had us smiling again. We checked into our hostel early. It was an old coal miner's lodging that had gotten quite the face lift on the interior. We didn’t take time to settle in and headed into town to get some groceries at the northernmost grocery store. Saw the northernmost gas station. The northernmost car rental company. The northernmost disc golf course. You see where this is going? They claimed it all. We met some incredible people at the hostel all there to travel and explore Svalbard. Some were doing the local tours of the mines. Some were hopping on boats and going out for a week. Some had just got back and were flying out in a day or so. They were from all the reaches of the world. Denmark, the Basque Country, different parts of India and Asia, the Netherlands, etc…Most spoke English, or at least tried. Lucky for us since our education seems to be the only one on this globe that didn’t teach us a second, or third, language. We made some quick friends and added the Netherlands to our list of places to visit!

We couldn’t have been more stoked as the hours ticked closer to our 10 day sailing trip but the boat still wasn’t in the harbor. The morning of the trip we drew in a released a huge sigh of relief when the boat was docked at the marina. It was here. It was real. We dropped off our bags on Azimuth early and headed back into town. We weren’t welcome aboard as the crew had a quick turnaround to get the boat stocked and in order for us by 16 that afternoon. We burned some time by stopping into Cafe Huskies where we hung out with someone from our trip and someone from our hostel. This cafe has multiple huskies that just lie around and enjoy pets from the customers. We were itching to get aboard at 16 and burning this time felt like an eternity.

At 1600 on the dot, we walked up to Azimuth’s other guests on the dock waiting to board. We wouldn’t find out until later that our unrelenting smiles and joy to meet and talk to new people would be the worst nightmare for the young Polish couple we happened upon first. They were champions and handled our “Americanism” with style and their own bit of reserved cheerfulness. We climbed aboard after meeting the first mate and were shown to our cabin. The “America” labeled cabin was ours, of course. It was two bunk beds for Lauren and I on the port side of the yacht. We were happy to have our own berth even if we weren't in the same bed. I’d love to say I could give a day by day description of the trip like Lauren has written but between the midnight sun, 21:30 12 km treks up a glacier, 00:00 to 04:00 navigation watches, 24 hour galley duties, naps in large following seas trying to empty you from your bunk, and polar bear, whale, and walrus colonies, the 10 day trip turned into one amazing, spectacular, single, beautiful day.

Our first stop was docking at an abandoned coal mining town. We walked 6-8 km winding our way past flying flags bearing the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union. This town was one of two we visited only to find out later they are flying the flags as a challenge to Norwegian rule over their Russian outposts on the island. In the center of town, past the empty, rusty swing sets blowing in the arctic breeze, a small hotel was available with some food and a bar. Come to find out, the occupation of that hotel by Russian nationalists keeps the buildings and the area under Russian rule…sort of. The details surrounding these towns seem few and far between and you get different responses as to the rules and laws depending on who you ask. One law is certain. One member of your group always has to be carrying a government approved rifle for protection from polar bears. Everywhere we went there were rumors from the locals that a bear had just been spotted in town just two days earlier. Lucky for us, we never ran into it…on land!

We left Pyramiden to sail north. The wind and weather looked ok for us to reach the northern area of Svalbard. Our boat chugged along for 15+ hours under motor doing about 6.5 knots carrying the 12 of us closer to the 80th parallel. We stopped at a research center in Ny-Alesund. It was a small town of scientists and most known as the Arctic base where Roald Amundsen left to explore the North Pole via balloon in 1926. It was a special place for a late “night” trek. Well outside of town, the captain decided to test his flare gun and a handheld flare to show us how it all worked. Unfortunately his flare gun gave him trouble and it took several minutes to get it to fire just after telling us we had only a few seconds to respond to a charging polar bear. It was quite an interesting, and hilarious, part of the trip

We sailed around many northern fjords dodging icebergs and anchoring next to massive glaciers. We experienced the thundering of calving glaciers and felt the shock waves in our feet that they sent out through the water. Although we had spotted many whales from humpbacks and minkies to fin and belugas, we were so far unsuccessful at spotting any polar bears roaming the shores. It was a bit disappointing but we were still satisfied with the glacier treks, whales, seals, puffins, and we even got to go ashore to hang out with a walrus colony.

After sailing back south to some fjords near our home port, Lauren and I had one last navigation watch. After almost 4 hours of hard searching with binoculars and only 15 minutes left in our watch, Lauren handed me the binoculars. She was completely exhausted from scanning the horizon for bears. I looked forward just past the bow of Azimuth to spot 3 white specks in the water. Completely exhausted with only one day left of the trip, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I tried to reason with myself. Birds. They had to be 3 birds. Then one turned and looked at the ship. It was a momma polar bear and her two cubs swimming across the fjord. RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! I screamed “POLAR BEARS!” and ran through the boat waking everyone up and banging on doors yelling as I went. Not 20 seconds later we were all on deck, cameras out, snapping pictures of these 3 bears swimming through the water next to us. Once they made it to shore, the momma bear started to roll around as the cubs climbed onto rocks in the water and jumped off like children playing in a summer pool. Once they all got out and headed up a hill, we turned the boat around feeling 100% satisfied with the trip.

The end felt surreal. We weren’t back already, were we? It felt like forever being on that boat and went by in a flash at the same time. That afternoon we taught our new Polish and German friends how to play disc golf before heading to a couple bars with a large part of the remaining crew for a few beers and a few more stories. The captain stopped by for a pint and we all shared our final “see you laters” with him. I spent the entire next day in bed or on a couch sleeping. It was absolutely glorious and much needed rest. Now it’s off to Tromso, Senja, Lofoten, and islands galore in the rainy north of Norway! Cheers.

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