Adventure Travel Blogs

Wednesday 22nd June, 2001

"Never doubt the ability of a few committed people to change the world, in fact it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Play safe, play 4-4-2 and you are unlikely ever to taste the heady polar elixir that tantalises those who venture this far North. Play 4-5-1, and gamble and you at least give yourself a chance of touching the elusive grail.

Gambles like our sea change on day three are ...

Tuesday, 21st June, 2011
Northwest Spitsbergen

"This grand show is eternal.  It is always sunrise somewhere. The dew is never dry all at once, a shower is forever falling. Vapour is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and glowing, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn as the earth rolls. And for this I am forever grateful to be alive."

John Muir

More balmy, bounteous benevolence was b...

Monday 20th June, 2011 Bellsund

"There are two kinds of men in the world, those that stay at home and those that do not. Of the two, the latter are by far the most interesting."

Sunday 19th June, 2011

Sea ice is a moveable feast; not a regimented table d’hote menu. Today she served us just enough to frustrate the bow yet not enough to seduce the bears. But this critique denigrates its beauty as Gaudiesque sculptures shimmered and mosaics glinted, grouted temporarily to the midnight-blue surface. Fulmars flew sorties alongside both decks and squadrons of guillemots scythed through the gradually lifting nimbus.

Larger fauna showed more reserve tha...

Saturday 18th June, 2011 Hornsund

“The most remarkable mountains I have seen, are situated near HornSund, .
. . Horn Mount, or Hedge-hog Mount, so called from an appearance of spines on the top when seen in some positions, takes its rise from a small tract of alpine land, on the southern side of Horn Sound.”

William Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions

So the drill for this expedition has been brutally broadcast, this merciless ...