Spitsbergen is the largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago - and home to one of the most exotic landscapes on earth. These islands are polar deserts - windswept, treeless, mountainous. Spitsbergen is generally ice free during the long polar winter, but icebergs and pack ice lurk offshore. Other than man, the only mammals inhabiting the island year-round are Arctic fox, reindeer and polar bear. During summer months, migratory birds flock to the island, and Spitsbergen is covered in a lush carpet of wildflowers.
The largest settlement on Spitsbergen is Longyearbyen. Named after an American mining engineer, this town of 2,100 people is the administrative capital of the islands.
We are doing a tour and this is what they wrote about it;
Thrill to a speedy catamaran cruise traveling 20 knots per hour across frigid waters to the Russian side of Svalbard, where you'll visit the Russian mining town of Barentsburg. Please dress warmly for this excursion, then walk to the dock area to meet the friendly crew and board the catamaran. The vessel allows for observation on the outer deck as well as from inside surrounded by panoramic windows. Your narrated scenic sail travels past incredible landscapes and stunning wildlife. Arrive in Barentsburg, the Russian capital of Svalbard, and walk up a set of stairs from the dock to the settlement. Meet your local guide and embark on a pedestrian sightseeing tour to view the lovely Soviet chapel and see the beautifully painted local buildings, the Lenin statue and the hotel. Enjoy some free time to shop for souvenirs, take photos, and send a special postcard home to loved ones from the post office. After 1.5 hours in Barentsburg, return by catamaran to Longyearbyen
Well I'm here to tell you that this tour lived up to everything they said about it and more. We got up early, which is getting more and more difficult, sleeping in tell nine seems like normal these days! We went down to breakfast in the dinning room and almost no one was there, weird. I guess they were all in the panorama Buffett, we have a tendency to over eat there, so we go to the dinning room.
After we went to meet the tour in the Cabaret lounge, it is so nice in there, verses the big theaters. Back to the tour, we walked from the ship, to the catamaran, it was more like the hydrofoil ferris of Europe tan a catamaran in the carriban, all inside with nice seats, like on an airplane.
We left the dock and it took about an hour and a half, to get to Pyramiden that had a mountin that looked like a pyramid. And a boast town that was once a thriving coal mining operation, once owned by the Russains, they left it all, and walked away, not pretty, but interesting.
When we arrived it was REALLY COLD, as the wind was really blowing, we were now N 78 40' the most northern inhabdent place and we were dressed for the occasion, just like Antartica, in many was this area, reminded us of the artic. There are 9 full time residents.
They had one 45 passenger bus, and there were probably 100 of us, so in order to get us all to the center, they had to make three trips, Ed was paying close attention to the guides, when they said if you were fast on your feet get in the first bus, we got in the third buss. LOL it turned out that was a great choice, as we were taken to a man-made lake, that you would not see any other way, as they don't normally take visitors there, but there were people on our bus, that were having a very hard time walking, so we just road. I wish I could show you what some of the road and makeshift bridges looked like, but we couldn't get off the bus to take pictures.
We then went to the center, which consisted of a building, that had 5 of the full time residents that served food to hikers, they take out, and on young woman that was a guide and the post mistress. And a clean WC, that was good! We didn't bring enough Kr and they didn't have capability to take CC, as there was no satalite, but we managed to get cards and 2pasties and 2 small shots of Russian Vodca, they called wine. LOL
So now it was back to the cat and the sale back to the ship, and we met a delightful couple, and before we knew it we were almos back, when the skipper, came on the PA, and said someone thought there was a whale, so he slowed down, and started looking, next thing you know I saw a blow, right off my window, and then after a couple minutes I saw another big blow and a fin. Well the skipper kept looking, it was at least another 15 minutes, and then a bigger blow, and he emerged a very large whale, known as a Fin Whale. He is a baleen whale, measuring in at 90 feet long, they are second, only to the blue whale, in size. Fin whales are solitary mammals that prefer tralving alone. Wow what a tour!
