Having gone to bed after midnight (and having had trouble falling asleep), it took me a moment to figure out what’s going on when our guide was outside shouting ”A big whale! A big whale!”. But we got up and there we were on deck at 3am, shooting the plumes of what turned out to be a young blue whale. So that’s a bit cool, now I’ve seen the biggest creature that has ever lived on this planet!

The first excursion of the day was to Pyramiden (The Pyramid), which is an old Russian mining town and during its peak, it had about 1000 inhabitants which made it bigger than Longyearbyen at that time. Now it’s abandoned and rusting away, but there’s a handful of people there year round, and there’s actually even a hotel and a surpringly pleasant bar, where we had coffee.

We did our final landing in Skansbukta. It’s a nice beach with a spectacular mountain, so we just took it slowly and contemplated on the many wonderful things we have seen on this trip. The wildlife, the scenery, the history… Svalbard is an amazing place and this trip was so much better than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams!

* * *

I had two major concerns before going on this trip: 1) Not being able to tolerate the people for a whole week 2) Not being able to sleep because of the sounds and the movement. So I’m almost shocked that I slept as well as I did, and maybe that’s what gave me strength to be a part of the group. Not to forget that this is one of the best groups of strangers I’ve ever been in, and I also had the best possible roommate!

Only on the last day did I feel my introverted side rear its ugly head, but that was really caused by the oncoming flu, I had a sore throat. I had allowed myself to get cold every day, by not dressing up warmly enough to stand on the deck. I didn’t want to have too many layers on while inside, and when I went on the deck, I was always missing one layer. On the day we had seen the polar bears, the cold set in my bones and I was freezing all day, and didn’t get warm until some time at night after sleeping under two extra blankets.

I think you already have an idea that I really liked this trip, and yes, it is by far the best trip I have ever made. Maybe it’s karma – I’ve had bad luck with the weather on my last three trips (Iceland, Greenland, Scotland) and now we had three days of calm in a place which normally only sees three calm days in a year. And we got lucky with the wildlife, those beautiful polar bears and then the blue whale which wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. And the group of people, seriously, you couldn’t possibly put together 11 strangers and get along so well with every one of them. And my roommate, a person I had never met before, who turned out to be a kindred spirit! And the beautiful ship, delicious food, excellent coffee (we never skipped a fika), friendly and helpful crew, and the best guides in the business.

The guides told us that we were the best group they had ever had. Cynically, we assumed they tell it to everyone, which they admitted that they do. But this time they really meant it, and by the time the trip was over, nobody doubted it any more. How could it possibly get better than this?