Twenty Twenty-Five

  July - Christchurch and The Arctic

  July 2 - Christchurch. After a really nice couple of days with Jill and Lesley on beautiful Miami Beach on the Gold Coast I had a much delayed connection to Christchurch, arriving home at 3am. I was so, so glad to have my new villa, as it would have been an uncomfortable arrival to the campervan.

  Use these links for the Asian Odyssey triplog and slideshow - and to see a fun little video of the journey from Kyoto to home created by the Find Penguins app (which I recommend) use this link.

  July 26 - Longyearbyen. I had 2 weeks at home catching up with a few people before heading off to Longyearbyen, Svalbard for my Arctic guiding contract. This entailed 48+ hours door-to-door, of which 29+ hours in a little metal tube including 17+ hours on a single hop (the 9th longest commercial flight - Auckland -> Doha). the only bonus was a long stopover in Oslo with a day room at a nice hotel at the airport.

  As ever, the expedition team had some old faces, and some new ones, which quickly gelled and got to work. The first voyage was a charter by a German tramping group. The language issue, combined with a bug acquired on the way, had me somewhat left out and under-energized. My birthday happened to be on the voyage BBQ/dance night - which was fun, but, overall, the voyage was unlucky with wildlife (no bears and not much else), thus quite "pedestrian".

  Only a very few images from this period: Voyage 1: Lillihookbreen, trappers cabin, a vigilant guard (photo credit: guest, Marc), walrus ashore

         

         

  August - The Arctic and the USA

   August 2 - Longyearbyen. On another changeover day after a very short Voyage 2 - only 5 full days to circumnavigate Spitsbergen. This was a Chinese charter, as is Voyage 3 which will have the same itinerary. Happily, Voyage 2 was very full of wildlife. The language barrier is always an impediment, but, with the help of our Mandarin speaking guides, we manage to give the PAX a good experience.

  Some scenes from Voyage 2: Morning in the sea ice at 81 North, Brunnich's Guillemot at Alkefjellet, the always amazing Zodiac cruise at Alkefjellet, Polar Bear (badly backlit) hassling a group of Walrus, on the water with Walrus, sky/cloud/sea ripples, the whitest Arctic Fox I have ever seen, Barnacle Geese, Svalbard Reindeer, Reindeer fur shed on the tundra, Zodiac cruise along the glacier front, Arctic Skua

         

    

    

         
    
         

         

         

  Use these links for the Voyage 2 slideshow and triplog

  August 9 - Lisbon. Where I am kicking myself and spending a second night after having missed my flight to Boston. Bugger. I blame myself - but also Lisbon airport. I arrived at my posted gate 1 hour early and was sitting in the gate lounge watching it fill, and being a bit distracted. 15 minutes before flight time I got up to see why were were delayed, only to find that the gate had changed without any announcements. Not even a call to me to say that I was missing. Apparently their policy is no announcements. Who knew. So, an expensive (1200 Euro) lesson, and my perfect record for never missing a flight broken.
  Anyway, Voyage 3 was a Chinese charter with the same itinerary - this time with 140 high school students and their 30 minders. Their English was good, as was their enthusiasm, once you got through the shyness, so it was a fun trip.

   Some scenes from Voyage 3: My cabin-mate Jacob hard at work; Walrus; Skyscape