Polar Expedition Day 1

We were supposed to meet at 3pm at Base Camp Hotel for transfer to the boat, but there was a slight delay as there had been a problem with the crane on the boat.  So we left at 4:45pm.  All 17 of us schlepped all our luggage outside to be loaded on board.  I had been worried and embarrassed about how much stuff I had, but there are others that have more than me.

 

yikes

We bussed down to the boat and on the dock were greeted by the Captain Julian and some of his crew, who all shook our hands and welcomed us on board.  We boarded, carrying our hand luggage and leaving the heavy stuff for the crew, and all trooped to the salon for the first round of briefings.

 The ship is called MS Polarfront and it is French, registered in Marseille, and the crew is French.

There was a brief hello and a round of introductions, with everyone saying their name and where they were from.   The “hotel” staff gave us a quick briefing, and Elise broke the ice spectacularly by referring to their comms as a Talkie Walkie.  She took the ensuing laughter with good humour and we think the name will stick for the rest of the trip. Both Lydie and Elise both have the cutest French accents.  Lydie briefed us on what to expect in our cabins (towels not changed daily unless we specifically request that) and told us there was a bottle by our bed which we could fill at any time from the dining room.  I clearly heard the word bottle, but others more deaf thought she said “butter”.  Which of course would be a very odd thing to have by our bed.  Barbara from Brisbane asked for clarification – did you say butter – which again resulted in much hilarity as the confusion was cleared up.   Suffice to say, the staff seem very good natured so far.  I don’t envy their job to be honest, they are basically at our beck and call 24 x 7, with quite a demanding list of chores to be done. 

We were then taken to our cabins.  I’m sharing with Belinda, an osteopath from just outside Toronto, and we survived our first night as roomies at the Base Camp Hotel in Longyearbyen, so hopefully that will continue.  We are sharing room number 1, called Mirage, which is at the front of the boat.  The room is pretty spacious, two single beds with a single bed sized gap between them, door at the end that leads to a cupboard where we can hang stuff and put our large items.  There is a cabinet with two drawers each for clothing, and a two seater couch against the far wall.  The bathroom has a good sized shower with a decent lip that means water won’t go all over the floor, a flush toilet as per an aircraft and a large vanity with drawers underneath.  

We had about 45 minutes to decide who got what bed, and to unpack and settle in before returning to the salon for a safety briefing.  

My bed is on the right, and there is a two seater couch that you can just see the arm of, and the bathroom is behind me.  

The towel rail was heated, and boy was that appreciated.

The loo is like an airline toilet, minimal water and maximum suction

Silly me, I was expecting a life jacket drill, but no, we each have a full immersion suit which we are expected to get into within 2 minutes, and it will apparently keep us alive for up to 6 hours in zero degree water.  One of the crew had the unenviable job of demonstrating this to us, I’m sure it would be even harder than it looks.  

We were given a demo of the emergency signal (7 short blasts of the ships bell followed by one long.  The bell sounds exactly like the old school bells we had to indicate start of class) and we were taken to the emergency alarm button and then out on to the deck to the life rafts.  There was no demonstration of these, it will depend very much on the type of emergency as to whether they will be deployed or whether they will launch the zodiacs (there are 3) as they are more stable and more manoeuvrable.

H & S matters dealt with, we were free to wander around at our leisure until 7:15 welcome drinks in the salon.  Aside from the crew rooms, and the section around the radar, we are free to wander anywhere, including the bridge, so the atmosphere is very relaxed and casual.  We pottered about, taking pictures, and watching while they untied the ship and moved it away from the wharf.

Sleeping quarters are below deck

main corridor below deck

hot tub

The circular wooden thing on deck is the sauna

Lounge/Salon

Dining room

For the welcome drinks, the entire crew was lined up to meet us and introduce themselves.  I’m not sure I can remember everyone, so will add a separate section for crew as it hopefully gets reinforced over the next 10 days.

Rinie, our tour guide introduces himself.  He has worked in this area for 31 years, he started out peeling potatoes when there were no other boats in the area. 

Then drinks were handed around, champagne (bien sur! This is a French ship!) and non-alcoholic drinks and the cook delivered some really tasty finger food.  Pastry sticks with cheese, mini pizzas, toasted bread with an olive mixture, toasted bread with a tuna mix, pate with fois grois, and rice balls.

Dinner was served at 8:15 in the dining room, later than usual (it will normally be 7.30pm) due to our late departure from shore.  There are 4 different tables, and I suspect we will mix and match as the trip progresses, though there seems to be a group of 4 that already know each other.

Like the rest of the crew, the cook/chef is French, and the food has been very good so far.  Apparently they will write the menu daily on a blackboard and we have the opportunity to ask for something else if there is something we don’t like.  There are a few that don’t like/are allergic to fish, and someone is allergic to garlic, as well as Dan’s crab allergy.

After dinner we pretty much headed off to our cabins and got ready for bed.  I was actually in bed in my jammies, when Belinda came in to say they had seen whales off to the starboard side of the ship.  So I scrambled into my clothes, grabbed my camera and headed up on deck, but of course by then, the whales were far behind us. 

It took me a while to get to sleep.  I have been aware of the motion of the ship, we are heading out of the fjord and once we reach open sea we will turn north and head up the west coast of Svalbard.  We have been told there will be an hour or so of greater movement than usual as we hit the open sea and until we are in a following sea (waves pushing us from behind – and dammit, now I have the song “Southern Cross” stuck in my head – “sailing a reach, before a following sea”).  There is a constant thrum and slight vibration of the engine and of course, we can hear the water moving past us.  Both will be white noise in a few days.

Meals:

Starter = aubergine layered with camembert cheese & topped with sundried tomato – delicious.

Main = cod and salmon on a mound of risotto, topped with a poo coloured sauce which we deduced was probably lobster or crab (as Dan was served without the sauce as he is allergic to crab)

Dessert = crème brulee

Maps: 

this is where we started from

screenshot from google maps, the blue circle shows our location

zoomed in view