Tips for Your Upcoming Polar Expedition Trip - 2019

We just returned from a polar trip to the Scoresbysund area of East Greenland. This was our fourth trip to a polar region and I thought readers might be interested in travel practices we've learned in preparation of trips just to the Arctic or Antarctic areas.

Pack a travel microfiber towel, travel clothes line and metal clothes clips. While many expedition ships provide clothes washing services, often the water wash temperature is too hot. From personal experience, one of my travel shirts was ruined by a hot wash from the laundry of a large cruise ship. 

Many new travel fabrics require cold water washing and are easily cleaned by simple hand washing in your cabin or hotel sink. Having a light weight travel towel, such as the Rainleaf towel, to squeeze water from hand wash and a clothes line can expedite drying.  The microfiber towels also dry very fast, often in just a few hours.

Most travel clothes will dry in a few hours or overnight. Heavy weight clothing, such as jeans or mid-weight fleece items, or even cotton t-shirts are not suitable for hand washing as the drying time is too long.  

If you’re in a small cabin with little storage, a clothes line not only provides drying space but it can help organize your cabin interior by offering additional hanging space for items such as gloves and small clothing items. We use the Lewis and Clark adjustable latex clothes line as it packs in a small pouch. The line can either use the included suction cups or be attached to a physical structure via small carabiner clip.  

We travel with about a dozen metal clothes clips. Damp clothes can be dried using the clips. We also found the clips are often strong enough to attach to the round metal head of a hotel "no theft" wood clothes hanger. This avoids the need to pack any plastic hangers for clothes drying. 

  

Bring a foam insole insert for your expedition ship provided muck boots. I bring an insole insert along with a pair of thick, medium and thin socks to improve the fit of a muck boot. Having an insert can provide a better boot fit when you need to wear a size up from your normal shoe size (muck boots in half sizes are rarely available). The foam insoles also provide additional insulation from cold boot soles. This is particularly an issue during a cold two hour zodiac cruise or hiking on snow and frozen tundra.  

Use an eyeglass holder cord. When you need to temporarily remove your sunglasses or prescription glasses, you'll want to avoid an accidental drop overboard – whether on a ship or zodiac. My favorite cords are those that offer length adjustment and strong grip, such as those made by Peeper Keepers.

Bring a pair of light weight gloves that can operate your touchscreen while being worn. If you’re out in moderate cold weather, it is great to be able to take a photo with your smartphone or iPad without needing to remove your gloves.  

Pack additional plastic bags. At the end of 7-22 day polar expedition, you may find your waterproof pants and expedition jacket no longer needed as you continue to travel and/or soiled enough that you want to pack them in your luggage. Having some large plastic bags helps to isolate these polar items from your cleaner clothes. We have included a small foldable duffel bag just for soiled expedition clothes for use during our return air flight. This is convenient if you don't have an airline fee for an additional check-in luggage piece.  

Consider Packing a Tri-Pod for Northern Light Photography. Long exposure photography from an expedition ship can be a challenge. Engine vibration from a non-moving idling ship can be felt at all times.

Our East Greenland expedition was in September, which provided a - possible - opportunity to observe the Northern Lights. This viewing is always uncertain given frequent fog and clouds. Luckily, we had two nights of clear weather during our trip. We received a wake-up call in our cabin at 2am on one night and 12midnight on the subsequent evening. 

Northern light photography requires long-exposures (one second or longer) and, thus, a steady hand. Higher ISO and larger aperture settings are also needed. I found that a tri-pod eliminated the need for a steady hand and allowed me to focus my attention to try different ISO settings and exposure times. While I had experimented at home with late night exposures of 5 to 15 seconds with my tri-pod, I found better success on-board with one to two second shutter speeds. With ship vibration, any shutter setting greater than two seconds often lead to blurry images. This forced me to push ISO settings to 8000 and aperture settings in the f2.5 to f2.8 range.  Truthfully my first night photos were not great but much better on the second night. 

If you have weight limitations, my suggestion is to bring a lightweight carbon fiber tripod that can easily support the weight of your camera and lens combination. I ended up purchasing a used (but still very expensive) Gitzo Traveler trip-pod, with the thought of selling it after the expedition. This Gitzo unit is about 3 pounds. extends to over 60 inches and can support a camera/lens weight of 22 pounds. You can find much less expensive tri-pods to use - the keys are sturdiness, weight and camera payload weight.