Arctic Adventures’ “Wildlife in The Ice” photo expedition cruise starts from Longyearbyen in the afternoon on day 1. We recommend all to arrive at least one day before departure. It is nice with an extra night in town to make sure that all participants and luggage have arrived before the expedition vessel leaves Longyearbyen harbor around 17.00
If you arrive the day before as we recommend you can spend the day in the surroundings of town looking for arctic birds like King Eider, Phalarope, Ivory Gull and Svalbard Ptarmigan and land mammals as Svalbard Reindeer and Arctic Fox. It is also possible to join activities like ice caving or dogsledding (optional).
Around 17.00 our expedition vessel will head out into Adventfjorden towards an amazing photo safari with fokus on wildlife in the ice and snowy landscape. We will keep our eyes open and scout for wildlife and nice scenery and light on our way out the fjord towards more remote areas.
On board the vessel we are taken good care of. Every day the chef will serve warm lunch and a 2 course dinner. Coffee and tea are available free of cost all the time and there will also be some goodies in the afternoon. The bakery is all made fresh on the ship.
On the expedition the focus will of course be on the land and marine mammals, but we also spend time with the arctic birds. Since most of the fjords are still covered with ice it is difficult to get to good anchoring spots. Therefore we will anchor in the ice from time to time so we are not on the move all the time. We will also spend a lot of time in the 2 big zodiacs to get down on the surface of the sea, to get closer and to get another perspective/angel for photos of the wildlife and scenery. Since we are only 12 photographers on the trip there won’t be more than 6 photographers in each zodiac which makes it easier for everybody to get nice photo opportunities.
Sea ice and weather conditions will determine our course on this expedition. The route will be made on the go according to the conditions and we will go where we from experience think we will have the best chances of encountering wildlife.
After 8 nights on board the strong and charming «Origo», a lot of nice moments and photo opportunities we will disembark in Longyearbyen 9.00 AM on day 9.
Flight to Longyearbyen should be no later than the day before departure and flight out can be from noon on day 9. If you would like to spend some days prior to the expedition or after we will be pleased to help you organizing that.
Arctic Adventures AS is the responsible tour operator and Jens Abild, Founder and CEO of Arctic Adventures AS, will be the expedition leader on the «Wildlife In The Ice» Photo Safari.
Jens Abild has been an expedition leader in the Antarctic and Arctic since the early nineties. He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental management and more than 10 years as a safety officer and safety course instructor for The Norwegian Polar institute. Since the nineties he’s been working on several expedition cruise ships as both guide and expedition leader and on Lance as expedition leader for the Norwegian Polarinstitute. More information about Jens Abild.
It is nice with this extra night in town because to be sure that all participants and luggage have arrived before the «Freya» leaves Longyearbyen harbour around 17.00
