1,447 Nautical Miles Later

Wednesday, 13 July

Before starting to write about our post-cruise stay in Oslo, I thought I’d summarize some thoughts about our Arctic expedition cruise aboard Silver Explorer.

1,447 nautical miles is equal to 1,665 miles — 2,680 km for those who are metric oriented. That’s the distance we covered from the time we left Tromsø on July 3 to when the ship docked in Longyearbyen today. I can see some of you wondering how I kept track of the distances covered during the voyage. I didn’t; the crew of Silver Explorer did the tracking for me and published the information in the last edition of the Silversea Chronicles, the daily information sheet delivered to the cabin each evening.

Summary of the point-to-point distances covered during the voyage.

So, what can I say about our adventure that I haven’t already said in the voluminous number of words and images that I have already shared. Not much, really. We had a terrific time and we enjoyed every minute of our voyage, as well as our pre-cruise days in Tromsø.

Although in some ways the Arctic — at least the portions that we visited — lacks the WOW factor of the Antarctic, we were not disappointed in the least. I attribute that partially to the fact that we traveled to the northern latitudes for the “complete” experience, and not just for the ice, the scenery, the birds, or the mega fauna. Each aspect of the Arctic — be it tiny … like the colorful flowers that survive in the face of the harsh climate; or immense … like the gigantic rivers of ice that form glaciers with deep-blue hearts — combined to give us an experience that exceeded our expectations.

That we enjoyed our expedition in the lap of luxury goes without saying. From the moment we set foot aboard Silver Explorer, the service was impeccable. I’m still not sure how the staff learned our names so fast, but by the second day even those with whom we had little interaction were greeting us by name. The little touches — like leaving an eyeglass cleaning cloth next to my reading glasses — made us feel pampered. The food was good, and beverages (alcoholic and non) flowed freely. The expedition team did a great job of sharing their love and knowledge of the Arctic with passengers. I’d definitely book another voyage aboard Silver Explorer — for the right itinerary.

Silver Explorer in Tromsø.

All that said, I would skip the luxury in a heartbeat to travel aboard a smaller vessel where we didn’t have to take turns rotating ashore to abide by landing/zodiac capacity restrictions. The expedition team did a good job of getting everyone ashore smoothly, but taking turns limited our time on landings considerably. It also perhaps limited the places we were able to visit around Svalbard because we spent twice as long at each site to ensure the four groups got equal time.

One thing I wish I could change about our trip — the time frame. Weather plays a prominent role in the northern latitudes. It impacts where one can go. It also impacts what wildlife one might see. We were very lucky, IMHO. Even though we had mostly overcast weather, there was no direct impact on any of our landings (that I know of). That said, were I to be lucky enough to return to the Arctic someday — maybe to Greenland or the Canadian Arctic this time — I’d go later in July; perhaps even in early August. This would increase our chances of being able to penetrate normally ice-bound areas — or would it? After all, weather is luck of the draw, isn’t it?

Final Itinerary of Voyage 7114 aboard Silver Explorer.

Now, onto Oslo …