Polar Voyages

by Gray, Gordon

  As it is still only early afternoon, we sail into Raudfjord, but heavy cloud prevents us enjoying the reported beauty of the place. Here, there is more fast ice, which is flat and clear of cracks and we are able to stop and go down onto the ice. The usual round of photography then ensues with people pushing the ship from the ice and stopping her with one hand, etc.

  Two walruses escape the prying cameras.

  As the vast emptiness of the frozen sea stretches across the ocean, a lone polar bear finishes his kill.

  The mountains of Spitsbergen and the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean seen from the north.

  We sailed after dinner and as Per sees little chance of getting any further east he steams straight into the pack, heading due north. He is determined to get as far into the pack as he can and we have a sleepless night listening to the ice grinding past the hull, and feeling the juddering of the ship, as she smashes her way forward and as the ice falls off along the ship’s sides. We imagine that there will be no paint at all left on the ship’s sides by the morning. However, by morning and we are deep into the pack and up to above 81 degrees north. Soon after eight o’clock, Per stops the ship. The engines are shut down, silence falls and we go on deck to sit and watch as the Arctic world of the ice pack comes to us. It is a wonderful world into which we now find ourselves locked. Large floes of ridged and hummock ice lie all around. It is far too uneven and hummocky to venture out onto the ice as there are deep gaps between the floes that will be fatal if you slip and fall into the water as the floes are in slow, but constant, movement and they will close gently together over your head once you have gone through. Apart from that, the ridges are big enough to enable a bear to move very close to the ship without being seen and that will be a surprise that we might not want out on the ice. There is still no sign of any clear water or leads. The ship sits silent and still all day in the polar seascape while we let the atmosphere and the sensation of being where we are, in the ice pack north of Spitzbergen, sink in. I try to imagine Nansen and his men when they reached the point when their ship, FRAM, was frozen into the ice off Siberia and they knew that she would not be released for another two or three years, by which time the Fram would have crossed the Arctic Ocean. This would be their world, a world of white, white and more white, apart from the total darkness of the too-long nights of the Arctic winters. They were no radios, no contact with the outside world, and no way for anyone to even know where they were let alone to help them. They were absolutely alone.

  Nearby, two walruses emerge from between the floes and lie on a larger floe. They, as usual, are totally disinterested in us and more concerned about settling down for a sleep than any threat that we might pose to them. Eventually, they grow annoyed at our presence, even though we were here first, and both slide gracefully off the floe and back into the water without a splash. They surface, look back at us, and then vanish into the deep. A few of us spend the morning in the bows of the ship just watching and listening to the pack ice as it moves in the slight swell and listen to the grinding and groaning of the ice pack and absorbing the atmosphere.

  In the late afternoon, Per restarts the engine and we force our way back out of the heavy pack and move back to the edge. Here, we stop and take the Zodiacs out for an evening ride round the larger floes, looking for seals. A large bearded seal lies on one with its head sticking out over the edge ready for a fast escape if a polar bear comes by. He is a bit surprised to see us appear in the Zodiac but other than that he never moves a muscle. We are within inches of him but he is just not bothered.

  We stop and haul the Zodiac up onto a larger floe so we can get a better view of the area. We have already lost sight of the ship. She is out there somewhere but she has already vanished behind the floes. The sun breaks through the clouds and shines on the distant peaks of Spitzbergen that lie low on the southern horizon and are bathed in soft sun light, while the views of some of the mountains are blocked out by the higher ice floes around us. As the sun drops behind the clouds so it brings cold air to the scene and the sea turns from clear and blue to onyx black and opaque and takes on a forbidding look. The sculptured ice statues of some of the floes now look fragile and vulnerable, while in the sun they had been dominant and strong, as the ever-changing Arctic light continually transforms the scene. We feel the chill and launch the Zodiac back off the ice floe. We find our way back through the ice floes to the Stockholm and gratefully climb back on board.

  South!

  It is clear that the ice pack extends right round the northern tip of Spitzbergen and that for all the captain’s best efforts the Stockholm will not get through to the eastern end of the islands. It had been a deeply cold and late winter in the Arctic so we had expected the ice to still be quite far south. We are just too early in a season. After some discussion, Per and Per Magnus decide to head south and see some of the sights that lie off the beaten track south of Longyearbyen. It seems strange to hear someone say ‘We are going south to 80 degrees north’.

  The July 14th Glacier

  We work our way slowly back down the coast and a day or so later we stop in Krossfjord, where the July 14th Glacier reaches the sea. We are soon in the Zodiacs again and are kept company by two puffins that land by the boats and spend ten minutes paddling along beside us about 10 feet away. They seem to have decided to escort us round their fjord. After watching another group of puffins perched outside their cliff-side burrows, we land on the beach about a mile from the magnificent glacier. Its ice front is about 90 to 100 feet high and is jagged and fractured. It stretches round the bay in an arc about a mile long. The ice at the top has broken into crags, towers and spires of ice, leaning out towards the sea as if waiting to dive in. Crevasses at the top edge open up as they reach the front of the glacier. There are other sections where raw wounds of bright blue ice have been left by ice that has broken away earlier. The light and sun gets behind these scars and throw a brilliant blue hue through the glacier. As the sun shines across the top of the glacier, some parts are a brilliant white while other parts that are shaded are deep blue. Cracks run down the face and at the bottom there are a number of small black caves. This fantastic mass of ice draws us to it like a magnet, regardless of our leader’s warnings to take care and not go any nearer. After a short while, a few of us find ourselves at the extreme edge of the glacier face as it curves round at the edges of the fjord to form an ice bay. We sit on a low, shingle beach about 20 feet from the water and with the sheer rock of the fjord side at our back. We can hear the great murmurings inside the beast. Muffled cracks and roars echo round the fjord, but it was all going on inside; on the outside, nothing moves, the frozen exterior is keeping the inner turmoils locked in. This goes on for some time and we watch and listen as the glacier groans and grinds a few yards away. Then, another series of louder cracks and roars ring out and then stop. It falls quiet again, but a piece of ice the size of a house, with hundreds of smaller chunks, silently just lets go of the glacier face. It slides silently and gracefully down the glacier face then trips and falls into the sea. We stare transfixed as it hits the water. ‘Run! Run!’ someone yells. At the same moment, a 6-foot high wave generated by this relatively small chunk is charging along the beach towards us, pushing other floating chunks of ice along in front of itself. Never have people in boots and parkas moved so fast. We run back along the beach and try to get up to the highest point and round the end of the cliff where we can clamber onto higher ground. We all make it, just, and escape, unscathed. Over our shoulders we see the wave rushing by at amazing speed and force. By the time it reaches us it has diminished to about 3 or 4 feet. The wave subsides, peace falls on the fjord and it is as if nothing has happened.

  The July 14th Glacier front and the narrow beach.

  As we return to the ship, anchored safely a mile or so away, and get back on board we can hear the glacier still groaning and roaring away like distant thunder. We stand on deck and watch in awe as a huge section of ice, about ten times bigger than the one we ha
d seen from the beach, collapses into the sea. The spray dies away and we can see the wave the calving has generated. It is a serious one, at least 12 feet high we think. Had we still been on the beach it would have gone well over the top of our boots. We watch as the wave races out from the glacier, rushing up the cliff sides and inundating the beach where we had been walking just a few minutes before. The wave clears birds and flotsam as it goes. What will happen when it reaches the ship? We are anchored in a wide part of the fjord and by the time the wave reaches us it has dissipated most of its energy and it is barely noticeable. We breathe a collective sigh of relief and recognise how, by not heeding the warnings given to us, we could have found ourselves in serious trouble. The message is ‘do not to mess with glaciers’.

  The world’s most northerly train at Ny Ålesund. (C. McCutcheon)

  On the way south we land on Prins Karl Forland Island to study a small group of walruses that have hauled themselves up on the beach and are mostly sleeping. While most are dozing in a walrus heap, one of the young males is in the sea just off the beach and has clearly seen us land and beach the Zodiac. He decides to take a closer look at our Zodiac and swims slowly down towards it. Per Magnus spots the danger and runs back. The walrus reaches the Zodiac and sniffs at it. Then he raises his tusked head over the low stern of the Zodiac by the outboard engine and examines the boat. He then starts to try and get on board the Zodiac from the stern by putting his head into the boat. Per Magnus arrives at the Zodiac and climbs in at the bow, picks up a wooden paddle from the floor of the boat and with a couple of sharp slaps on its nose persuades the young walrus to go elsewhere for his fun. While Zodiacs are very tough and buoyant, they are not designed to act as flotation rings for a ton of walrus. If it had succeeded it would have probably destroyed the boat and certainly knocked the outboard motor into the sea.

  A walrus approaches the Zodiac looking determined. Will this one be friendly?

  Evidence abounds of Spitsbergen’s mining industry. (C. McCutcheon)

  By the next afternoon we are much further south in Kaulenfjord. We are relaxing in the saloon having a peaceful cup of tea and enjoying the warmth of sun shining through the windows, and I am thinking that perhaps no one would notice if I slipped away for a nap, when two polar bears are spotted on the fast ice by the shore. We rapidly take to the Zodiacs to have a closer look. As we gently approach, one of them moves off. The other one, however, is obviously in two minds and it decides to stay and see what we are. It then comes quickly out onto the fast ice and continues towards us and the ice edge with a swinging, loping gait and a look of purposeful intent. Is it going to dive into the sea to investigate us more closely? Should we get out of here fast? We watch in awe as it gets to the edge of the ice, then it stops and picks up the red remains of a seal carcass, which we had not noticed, and which the bears must have left there when they first saw us approaching. The bear has clearly remembered that it had left the remains of a seal on the ice and has returned to make sure we do not get it. We are able to sit in the Zodiac a few yards off the ice and watch this great beast as it comes out to the edge and collects the remains. It gives us a look that says ‘This is mine, so clear off’, then it trots off, with the remains of the carcass hanging from its mouth, to catch up with the other one, probably its mother, and together they wander off along the shore.

  The day is spectacularly clear, the sun bright and warm, the visibility is endless and the scenery stunning. A few reindeer roam the lower slopes and Arctic birds are everywhere. The mountains all around the fjord glisten in the distance and the calm sea twinkle in the sunshine. Later that day we anchor in a bay by a huge shingle beach. Here, in the middle of nowhere, but not far from some old huts that had been used by whale hunters in the 1800s, we set up a BBQ at the top of the beach using some of the many thousands of tons of driftwood that for some strange reason have come ashore in this particular area. There is driftwood as far as you could see along the tops of the beaches. It is well dried and makes a grand fire. While the food and company are excellent, it is the aura that the place held that makes it magical. The perfect stillness and silence of the Arctic summer’s night, the flat sea, the ship lying motionless at anchor off the shore and the mountains in the distance in the midnight sun. Everyone has come ashore and we leave the ship to herself for a few hours.

  On our last day we meet up with some walruses, who decide to swim out and see us off. We spend a good hour drifting about them in the Zodiacs before we reluctantly move off.

  So we ended this fantastic Arctic trip. It was made in many ways by the ship itself. The ship’s warm and cosy interior, her history and the love that Per, her skipper owner, clearly had for her, all built the atmosphere on board and created an environment where we all felt privileged and lucky to be where we were. The intimate nature of a small ship, with just a few good people living closely together, engenders a strong feeling of responsibility as we had to depend on each other if trouble arises. This feeling is impossible to get on large cruise ships as the more people there are on the ship the less responsible one feels as there will always be others there first to deal with a problem. On Stockholm, we all felt that we were a part of the crew and not just ‘passengers’.

  CHAPTER 11

  MV Lofoten

  Arrival on board

  The aircraft engine noise dropped away as we slowed for our landing at Kirkenes. The plane banked round and then the engines roared again. As it turned, my weight went against the window and I peered out and down into the gloom. All I could see below us was thick cloud. Then a few breaks appeared and through one of them I caught sight of a grey sea, with white streaks of windblown spray and breaking wave tops. There to the right in the distance was a tiny jetty and a small black hulled ship approaching it. The plane levelled out, the clouds closed in again, and the view was gone.

  ‘You had better book early as Lofoten is a popular old ship with the enthusiasts and fills up quickly’, the Hurtigturten sales person advised me on the phone. I had selected the Lofoten because she was the last typical Norwegian coastal voyage mail boat. All the other ships on the route today, there are fourteen of them, were much newer, larger and more luxurious in every way. Lofoten, however, exudes an air of mature dignity, small but beautifully formed. Her black hull and smart, sweeping bridge structure gave her the look of a small, aging aristocratic lady among her bigger, brasher, more upfront and modern pop star celebrity sisters.

  I had wanted to go on the Norwegian coastal voyage ever since I had first heard about it as a child. I remember, when I was about ten, going into the Norwegian railways office in Cockspur Street, by Trafalgar Square, and asking for information on the voyage. The excitement of it was that the ships ran from Bergen in the south of Norway all the way to the most northerly ports in Europe, many well inside the Arctic Circle. The ships stopped at all the small towns and villages on the way, dropping off and collecting passengers, mails, and cargo. Originally operated by a number of separate companies, working from different ports with different sizes of ship, these had come together over the years and the Hurtigruten route established. Hurtigruten translates as ‘fast Route’ in Norwegian and is the name given to the service that operates from Bergen to Kirkenes and back.

  Now, finally, fifty years after my first enquiry, here I was about to sail on Lofoten from Kirkenes to Bergen. After flights from Edinburgh, via Copenhagen and Oslo, I stepped onto a wet, cold and windy tarmac at Kirkenes. It was early October and the temperature was 2 degrees Celsius. The first snows of winter were already on the hills and the low-scudding clouds, which had prevented any view of the town itself from the air, were full of snow and sleet.

  At the deserted and windy pier, the Lofoten was tugging at her mooring lines and grinding against the timbers of the jetty, eager to be off, as the northerly wind blew her hard against it. I descended the short gangway onto the deck and looked around. There was no one in sight. I went inside and down to the purser’s office. A warm atmosphere wrapped
around me, and a scent of marine diesel oil reassured me that this was a real ship. I got my cabin key from the purser, who warned me that it would be very rough outside and to be prepared for bad weather tonight.

  I found my cabin one deck down on the port side. It was small with two bunks, the upper one folded up during the day and the lower one could be folded back to reveal a settee for daytime use. There was a small porthole right in the corner, over a tiny desk, and a little bathroom area. I was glad that my wife had decided against coming on the trip – the desk would not hold her lipsticks, never mind all the other makeups and hair sprays that modern women cannot live without. As for clothes storage, well, clearly we were meant to travel light. However, it would be ideal for me and I quickly unpacked my travel bag. A few minutes later I heard and felt the ship’s engine start up, and the ship was soon straining against the fore spring as she tried to swing her stern out against the wind and depart stern first into the gale.

  Lofoten was built in Oslo in 1964 and is a single-screw ship of about 2000 tons. She had none of the modern mechanical ship’s aids, such as twin screws, or azipods, bow thrusters or even stabilisers! All her manoeuvring was done by the single propeller; she demanded the highest standards of seamanship and ship handling from her officers. Lofoten had cabins for 147 passengers but was about half full on this trip.

  Settling In

  Once clear of the jetty, Lofoten swung round into the wind and was soon steaming out of the Kirkenes fjord and heading for Vardo, some hours away. I set off to explore the ship. The small ship was warm and comfortable, without being in any way luxurious. There were two forward facing lounges with big easy chairs and polished wood panelling. A similar lounge at the stern afforded open views aft and gave access to the after decks. The dining room was a light, comfortable and pleasant room with wood panelling and blue upholstery; the smart white clothed tables already set for dinner. A polar bear skin graced one of the bulkheads in the main stairwell. As we headed north, out of the shelter of the fjord, the sea rose and the wind noise turned to a scream. I decided that a Stugeron seasick tablet was in order to ensure I enjoyed my first meal and had an undisturbed night.