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Cruising in the Arctic

At the first mention of a summer sail in the Arctic my mind toyed with images of frozen tundra, freezing winds, boat crushing ice floes and violent storms. Great conditions for a burly icebreaker but surely not a brand new shiny Oyster 62, designed for blue water cruising rather than butting icebergs. I had much to learn about Spitsbergen, the main group of islands on the west coast of the Norwegian governed Svalbard archipelago.

Fed by the warm northbound Gulf Stream current, Spitsbergen enjoys a far warmer climate than other polar destinations at similar latitudes (76-81°N). The average temperature in the short two-month long summer season is 6°C, so with a locker full of thermals and good heating, we were all set.

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The aim of our cruise was to reach 80°N, just 600 miles south of the North Pole. It is rare for any yacht to reach so far north due to severe and changing ice conditions in the region. However, this year the ice charts showed the floes to be much further north giving us a good sporting chance of getting there, providing the weather didn’t close in and we could keep clear of ice bergs. So, after last minute victualling in Longyearbyen, the administrative centre for the archipelago and home to 1400 locals, we set sail.

The Svalbard archipelago is the size of Ireland and over 60 per cent is covered in glaciers. Flying into the islands is like flying over the Alps when the valleys are full of cloud, but instead of cloud, these ancient Arctic valleys are full of velvety white ice rivers. These glaciers spill into a network of fjords that lead out into the Greenland Sea.

Vikings in 1194 knew about this region, calling it ‘cold coast islands’. Dutch explorer Willem Barents rediscovered the archipelago in 1596, naming it Spitsbergen, or pointed mountains. As we sailed from Longyearbyen across the wide Isfjorden, banked by jagged cliffs carved to a sharp peak by frost, it was hard to believe this entire region was once located in the tropics. In truth it is a geologists paradise. Leafy fossils and a well-tapped seam of coal are all that are left of this verdant past in this now tree-less environment.

Target Practice
Our first stop was 30 miles from Longyearbyen in a bay named Trygghamna, at the mouth of the Isfjorden. The 17th Century whalers, hunting for lucrative whale oil and baleen, used this sheltered bay as a quick escape from the weather. As whale numbers dwindled, it became home to trappers hunting for walrus, polar bear, seal and arctic fox. On the shore we could see two wooden huts overlooking the fjord. Time for our first foray ashore. We launched the dinghy and loaded the gun for a closer look.

Our 30-calibre rifle was our ninth crew member for the trip. The Governor’s office stipulates that all expedition groups must carry rifles. More than 3,000 polar bears enjoy a predator-free life on Svalbard. They can swim faster than a man can row, run faster than a man can sprint and are quite happy to vary their seal diet with human flesh (although apparently only three to five per cent enjoy the taste). Good enough reason to carry a rifle.

Ashore, we found that one trapper’s hut was derelict, dating back over 100 years. Made of bleached Siberian driftwood, swept ashore on the current, its tumbled remains included one tiny room with a rusting oven grate, a decaying roof and walls banked up with moss to protect the hunter from the vicious winter. Outside, small wonky posts marked where the trapper had stretched out his skins before taking them to market. The second hut was a more modern version. The size of a single garage, it was tethered to the ground by thick steel guys, and contained a serious wood burning stove and a small room dedicated to fuel.

After two false starts the following morning , the fog finally rolled aside allowing us to escape from Trygghamna. Fog is a common problem in the summer when warm southerly winds from Europe hit the icy melt-water running off the glaciers. We turned our Oyster northwards in a fresh southerly breeze and charged up the coast.

Soon the breeze increased to a gale as the seas quickly heaped up. Nature is merciless in these latitudes and you have to watch the skies constantly for changing clouds. A ruler straight line of altocumulus had crossed our horizon. Just 17 miles south of our goal, it was time to find safety. Carefully slipping between Dansk and Amsterdam, two outlying islands on the north-west coast, we found our way into sheltered Virgohamna, a deserted bay with a huge history.

Between 1896 and 1928, Spitsbergen was the point of departure for nine attempts to fly to the North Pole. Five left from Virgohamna in balloons and airships – not one made it. Scattered piles of rusting iron filings, nails, wire, pottery, felt and bolts are all that remain of a site that was once as well know as Cape Canaveral is today.

Fram Glacier
A small windshift heralded another fast change as the skies cleared, turning our safe anchorage into a lee shore. With a line to a rock and an anchor fouled by thick kelp things were not looking good. With a the help of a large knife, we cut ourself free and hurried out towards Fram Glacier, named after the ship of the famous Norwegian explorer Fridtjof nansen, which drifted in Arctic pack ice for three years.

Over 40 m high, the face of the glacier appeared like a pale blue Styrofoam carving, only a closer inspection by dinghy revealed its true drama. Huge chunks of ice waited their turn to be pushed over the edge. Vast crevices, tunnels and streaks of moraine marked thousands of years of history.

I now understand why people say glaciers talk. As we approached, we could hear a low painful grumbling as the monster prepared to calve. As soon as the bergs hit the water the ice begins to pop and crackle like Rice Krispies, as air, trapped under immense pressure, is released.

This was our first opportunity to get near to a berg and we edged closer until we felt the keel shudder. We reversed off quickly thinking of the Titanic, remembering that only one ninth of an iceberg appears above the water.

Breakfast with Polar Bears
Edging five miles closer to 80°N, we anchored in Holmiabukta, a small hidden bay on the northern coast, with an impressive glacier spilling down to the water ahead of us. As with all the anchorages we found, this was surprisingly shallow at 17m, with good holding. Only our kelp anchorage in Virgohamna had forced us to put a safety line ashore.

That night the sun shone brightly. Spitsbergen is the land of the Midnight Sun, enjoying 24-hour daylight between April and September. On arrival this seems a great excuse for a party but after a week you learn that chattering until 4am is not very constructive.

At 0600 the following morning we are awoken by the strange sound of growling and huffing. We stepped on deck to see two polar bears on the shore, just 100m from the yacht. One bear slid down a snow-drift on its back, legs splayed in the air like a child playing a wild game of roly-poly. Slowly the two animals sauntered towards the head of the glacier, taking to the water as the path became too steep. We hauled up the anchor and followed the bears carefully towards the foot of the glacier. Here we watched these largest carnivores on Earth, with paws like cudgels, heave themselves effortlessly from the water onto the flat ice at the foot of the glacier. After several hours watching them stalk seals, we reluctantly turned the yacht to make our final run whilst the weather was good, to our northern goal.

Walrus lunch guests
Our GPS showed 80°N and, in oily flat seas, we reached our goal. Like gatekeepers to the extreme north, a line of icebergs floated imposingly on our target latitude. I had expected bergs to be white but these were a deep icy turquoise caused by the immense pressure of their formation. A line of seagulls looked down at us from the 40m peak, daring us venture closer. These giants can destabilise and roll without warning, which would have made short work of us.

Just over a mile further on, we reached our turning point, Moffen Island, a three-day sail from the North Pole. Compared with the towering mountain peaks behind us, Moffen looked as if it had just drifted in from the Pacific. A low-lying atoll, surrounded by a sand bar, it is also a nature reserve and summer residence for walrus.

Our approach sparked a flurry of interest among the inhabitants and we soon had a welcoming committee of walruses circling us like inquisitive sentries. With white tusks raised high in the air, water dripping from their coarse handlebar-shaped moustaches, they let out a foul smelling snort of welcome. They are surprisingly agile in the water, diving and rolling and reappearing in unison like a well drilled platoon. Ashore we could see the bulk of their cinnamon brown relatives, some weighing over two tons, slumped with their bellies in the air as is waiting to be tickled.

We raised our glasses to toast our success, then look up to the skies and decide to head home while the going was good. On the way we spot a herd of reindeer, working their way up a steep gully. It was hard to work out where they were going but possibly towards a tiny patch of green that we could see below a rocky overhang. It seemed a lot of effort for a very small reward, but life is not easy here in Svalbard. Everything, including the tiny flowers, bloom during the brief summer, fattening up to survive the austere winter.

Survival is the key word in the Arctic. Whether living year round in these harsh conditions or cruising for a month in summer, the secret is to adapt to the fast pace of change, respect the power of nature and take no risks. It is truly the most fascinating and pristine wilderness we have ever encountered, yet only as many as 20 yachts cruise these waters each year, we are all the lucky ones.