This is a
journal, kept by Paul and Rosemarie Birman, recording an expedition to the high
arctic (Svalbard - Spitzbergen) during July 2000.
The text is by Paul, the
photographs by Rosemarie.We
traveled with Lindblad Expeditions (formerly
Special Expeditions) aboard the
3100-ton, ice strengthened ship M.S. Caledonian
Star.This is the same ship
that we previously cruised aboard in January, 1999 to Antarctica.
We flew to Edinburgh, Scotland a few days before boarding
the ship in Leith and
traveled first along the Orkney and Shetland Islands before crossing the North
Sea to Norway’s spectacular North Cape.At
first we attempted to go up Spitzbergen’s eastern coast but were stopped by
heavy pack ice.The western shore
proved ice free, owing to the effect of the Gulf Stream and the ship was able to
travel the entire length of the Svalbard archipelago (Spitzbergen is the main
island) to the edge of the pack ice above 80 degrees latitude, where polar bears roam.The trip ended in the town of Longyearbyen from whence we flew back to Oslo and
London for a couple of days before returning to New York.
.
I recorded
latitude and longitude from my Garmin GPS III, or from the GPS on the ship’s
bridge.We saw bear, walrus, seal,
whale, fox, reindeer and many sorts of seabirds in profusion.
Most of the photographs on this site were taken by Rosemarie with a 35mm Pentax
zoom camera. A couple of the bear photographs and the walrus were captured from frames of
Paul’s videotape.The text was
composed contemporaneously on a Psion organizer/palm-top computer.
We had 78
passengers aboard, 4 guests, 12 staff and 3 persons experimenting with
underwater photography and kayaking; a total of 97.
We flew to Edinburgh, Scotland a few days before boarding
the ship in Leith and
traveled first along the Orkney and Shetland Islands before crossing the North
Sea to Norway’s spectacular North Cape. At
first we attempted to go up Spitzbergen’s eastern coast but were stopped by
heavy pack ice. The western shore
proved ice free, owing to the effect of the Gulf Stream and the ship was able to
travel the entire length of the Svalbard archipelago (Spitzbergen is the main
island) to the edge of the pack ice above 80 degrees latitude, where polar bears roam.
The trip ended in the town of Longyearbyen from whence we flew back to Oslo and
London for a couple of days before returning to New York.
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