Around Tromsø: Polaria

Sunday, 3 July

We were up again at 7:00a ... this time after a rather restless night. There was too much street-partying in the late hours of the night and the sounds were clearly audible in our fifth floor apartment. We later found out that a group of soldiers were enjoying their last evening in town before shipping out to Afghanistan. Here’s to their safe return; but I wish they had gone down to the waterfront for their bar-hopping farewell party.

As was the case yesterday, the sun was out from behind the clouds through the night and into the early morning. No sooner were we up and about, however, the clouds moved in to give us another overcast day. At least there was no sign of rain.

We had breakfast, packed what we had taken out for use in Tromsø, dropped off our bags at the front desk since check out was at noon (we knew we wouldn’t be back before then), and were on our way by 10:00a. So again, we got off to a late start; so unlike us.

I was charmed by this rust bucket getting a face lift at the local shipyard.
(the overcast made for dull light conditions, so I tried some picasa magic on this.)

First item of business was to return to the pier where the Silver Explorer was docked. We knew sailaway was at 4:00p, but nowhere in our documents could we find the embarkation time. An answer of between 1:00-2:00p was satisfactory, leaving us with time to do a bit of sightseeing. Munching on the PB&J sandwiches Mui had prepared as a mid-morning snack, we pointed our feet in the direction of Polaria, billed as the Museum of the Arctic (105 NOK … or about $20/person).

The building is designed to represent ice floes pushed up against land by the rough Arctic Ocean.
[if there was a public vantage point to shoot this image, we missed it.]

Mostly our interest was in seeing the panoramic movie about Svalbard. The 15-minute presentation served as a very nice introduction to the areas we hope to be visiting in a few days time.

This is what we’re here for … to get a sneak preview into Svalbard.

That this voyage is going to be different from our expedition to the Antarctic became quite evident from the scenery presented on the screen — beautiful, but in quite a different way. Definitely a much starker environment, and perhaps with less of the “wow factor” and the multitudes of wildlife we experienced in the southern latitudes. I’ve heard say that if you’re going to visit both areas, go to the Arctic first or it might be a letdown after the Antarctic. I don’t think that’s going to be the case for us; we’re prepared to enjoy the differences between the regions.

The panoramic screen gives a near 180° view of the scenery.

From the theater, we exited into the Arctic Walk. This area is described as a place “where you can experience first hand some elements of Arctic nature — a snowstorm, a dozing polar bear, the tundra and the Aurora (Northern Lights).” The polar bear (snoring no less) and the birds were there, but I think they forgot to turn on the special effects today.

We then checked out the small aquarium where we saw Arctic species of fish, and a couple of red king crabs. The latter species is steadily spreading south as it migrates from Russia. Weighing up to 22 pounds (10 kg), they are huge. Unfortunately, the room was quite dark with spotlights reflecting off the water — not conducive to photography at all — so I’m going to resort to including a photograph I found on Wikipedia.

A bit of melted butter please!

Our last stop was the pool where we watched the feeding and training of two bearded seals — an Arctic species that can be found in Svalbard as its natural habitat — and two common (harbor) seals — a species that can be found around the world. The keeper was quick to explain that the twice-a-day training sessions were intended to provide the seals with mental stimuli and train them to cooperate with the vets for medical examinations.

Bella and Mai san are two of the three bearded seals that arrived at Polaria in the
summer of 2003 as five-week-old pups.

We hope to see bearded seals in their natural habitat when we’re in Svalbard. In the meantime, I’m glad we had an opportunity to see their captive ambassadors today — just in case! The pool area was quite dark (with just the platform spot lit), so I limited by shutter-bugging. Mui got some good video, however. Enjoy — if for no other reason than to see the whiskers for which the species has been named! (Click on the image below to launch the clip; depending on your screen size, you can select a different size from the options available.)

Bearded seals have a quiet nature and a non-aggressive disposition.

For those who’d like to see a bit more, I found this 4½-minute video on the Polaria website. It features Ian Wright of Globe Trekker fame. The video provides a good overview of the facility.

A glance at our watches revealed that it was nearing 1:00p; time to collect our luggage from City Living and head on over to the ship. We were thrilled to see blue skies and plenty of sunshine when we left Polaria — a good omen for our sailaway.

Along the way, seeing this woman at the bus stop, we couldn’t help but chuckle and be glad that we were walking and not waiting for a bus to get where we were going. She’s obviously been there a while, and she’s not looking too happy about it.

Not sure this statue will encourage ridership on the city busses!

The concierge at City Living called us a cab and by 1:30p we were on our way to the pier at Nansenplass … excited to begin the next chapter of our adventure.