Here are some photos from my recent trip to the Arctic.
We left Spitzbergen by ship travelling north to within 500 miles of the North Pole when we reached the pack ice and could not go any further. Then south west to Eastern Greenland for a week before going further south to Iceland where the trip ended.
Animals – Polar Bear, Musk Ox, Reindeer (Caribou), Arctic Fox, Walrus, Bearded Seal.
Humpback Whale, Sperm Whale, Minke Whale, Killer Whale, White-beaked Dolphin.
Birds – Fulmar, Kittiwake adult and juvenile, Little Auk, Brunnich’s Guillemot, Glaucous Gull, Ivory Gull, Arctic Skua, Pomarine Skua, Great Skua, Arctic Tern, Sooty Shearwater, Barnacle Goose, Brent Goose, Long-tailed Duck, Puffin, Purple Sandpiper, Ringed Plover, Turnstone, Raven, Greenland Wheatear, Snow Bunting, Lapland Bunting.
And some scenery, mostly ice, from the land of the Midnight Sun.
Not a trip for the faint hearted. The temperature rarely rose above 3 deg C, we had two storms at sea including one with 9 metre waves and gusts up to force 12. But the ship, a Russian Polar Research vessel, was well able to cope with all these conditions.
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Last edited by wgeoff at 26/03/2010 18:20 ]