Getting Ready for Another Polar Adventure - 2019

Greenland has been in recent news - warming Arctic seas, melting glaciers, the Trump administration expressing purchase interest and Denmark firmly responding with no interest to US acquisition of Greenland. Quite a lot information to view for this somewhat remote area.

We're planning a trip to Scoresbysund, in East Greenland. This natural sound is the longest fjord in the world, at about 215 miles (346,000 meters) in length, with a maximum depth of almost eight-tenths of a mile (1,300 meters). There is only one settlement in this area, Ittoqqortoormiit, which has about 450 inhabitants. We're still practicing our pronunciation of this Inuit settlement.

Our trip will be on a small (240feet/73meters long) expedition ship that carries a total of about 115 guests and crew. The ship has a Finnish ice rating of 1B, meaning the ship can travel through a maximum flat ice thickness of 1.5 feet or 50 centimeters.

If all goes according to plan, we hope to have a few nights to view the lights from Aurora Borealis. During the daylight hours, we should have about 12-13 hours of sunlight to view puffins, muskox, arctic fox, little aux, geese, elders, guillemots and terns. We might even see a few polar bears.

Before and after our expedition, we'll spend some time in Reykjavik, Iceland. This will be our second trip to Iceland and we'll probably limit our exploration to the Reykjavik. 

We struggled a bit with selecting our air transportation. We finally settled on trying Iceland Air Saga Class seats from Seattle to Reykjavik and return. The seats are somewhat upright but at least the flight is only seven hours in duration. We picked up some compression socks to help circulation during the flight. These types of socks prevent deep vain thrombosis (DVT) and blood clots from forming in your legs during longer flights.

This trip could be our last polar adventure, though I admit personal interest in making one more trip to Antarctica. The majestic beauty and remoteness of the Antarctic area, variety of wildlife and opportunity to visit current and former research stations is quite attractive to me.

  

October 2017 Update

Well, we recently sold furniture and household items that wouldn't fit into the smaller house we're building and packed up the remaining items for three month storage in a moving company's warehouse. Given all the work that moving brings, one distinct benefit of this effort is that we have pared down our belongings. Household items that were not needed in our final residence location or little used are now gone.

We're now in temporary housing in a nearby community for three months. The three months should go by quickly as during this time we have a month long trip to South America and a week stay in an acquaintance's mountain cabin.

Source: maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com

Although we still have one more house move to complete, we're starting to plan for 2018 travel. We have a Spring transatlantic cruise that will take us from Fort Lauderdale to Iceland ports and then disembark in the UK. This will be a back-to-back trip and the adjoining cruise will take us to several northern Norwegian ports, including a return visit to Longyearbyen. At the conclusion of the second cruise, we'll take a week for a drive holiday through the UK.


While we're still considering sights to see on this long set of cruises, places on the top of our list include:

• Tour of Lake Myvatn area of Ajureyei, Iceland
• Driving through the "Golden Triangle" geothermal area of Reykjavik, Iceland
• Tour of Castle of Mey in Scrabster, Scotland
• Mountain biking in Flaam, Norway

Source: Publicdomainpictures.net

A little later in 2018, we just booked a trip that will permit us to visit Grand Tetons National Park and Yellowstone National Park. We haven't traveled previously to either of these parks and are looking forward to seeing the area. Other than an early career business trip to Helena, Montana, I haven't been back to Wyoming. I'm a reader of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett novels and will enjoy seeing the parks, mountains, ranch lands and animals that I've only read about. This might be our first viewing opportunity to see a Pronghorn Antelope.

We're still considering a winter ski trip, but not sure if this will conflict with our move into our final residence. Why do I say final? The new house is built for aging in place - including wide doorways and halls and a no-curb shower. While we don't need these features now, we envision a time when they might come in handy. I will acknowledge that this move has quenched any interest in purchasing another house in the future.