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(CNN) — The summer time earlier than I turned 40 — with my fertility ebbing, as everybody with a vested curiosity in such issues felt the necessity to remind me — I made a decision to set sail on the largest journey of my life.
The reality is, I used to be in search of journey. And I used to be hardly the one one.
Writer Terry Ward, left, with crew members Jon Grantangen, Andreas B. Heide and Ivan Kutasov.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
Our crew of 5 hailed from Norway, Russia, the United States and Germany (I used to be the one girl and the lone American onboard).
The captain was Andreas B. Heide — an skilled sailor and marine biologist I’d met years earlier than via the Couchsurfing web site. He free dives with orcas in the Norwegian winter, scorning tropical locations to sail to locations resembling Iceland and Greenland as an alternative.
Daniel Hug, an outside adventurer and mountaineer from Germany who’d labored as an avalanche observer in addition to a part-time hair mannequin, was our onboard cameraman.
We met Ivan Kutasov, the Russian, because of a serendipitous Instagram put up of him surrounded by ice in a plywood sailboat in the Russian Arctic. And Jon Grantangen was a mild-mannered Norwegian and ex-military marksman who’d already been to the Arctic aboard Barba (and had as soon as walked the complete size of Norway, only for the heck of it).
We had been a forged of characters that appeared maybe healthier for a actuality TV present than an Arctic expedition to a spot with extra polar bears than individuals. And I questioned how being the one girl aboard would play out.
The crew of 5 lived aboard Barba for four months, crusing to Svalbard and again.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
An expedition laced with angst and journey
Our floating residence, Barba, was Heide’s 37-foot Jeanneau sailboat manufactured from fiberglass, technically higher fitted to snorkeling outings in the Mediterranean than selecting her means via the pack ice in the polar areas, as we finally would.
As the saying goes, although, the perfect boat is the one you’ve got. And Heide had tricked out Barba to the max with all method of security gear — together with radar, a forward-looking sonar to scan for ice and a dinghy for getting ashore and exploring tighter spots — so she was as seaworthy as attainable for our journey to Svalbard and again.
Inside, the boat was the scale of a small school dorm room, with three cabins for sleeping, a galley and a lounge, the place all of us sprawled amoeba-like, occupying each sq. inch to learn, eat and scour the nautical charts.
In an effort to enhance Russian-American relations, it was determined that Kutasov and I’d room collectively. And it labored out properly, as he and I amassed a set of driftwood, reindeer antlers, sea glass and different Arctic detritus that would not have flown contained in the tidier German and Norwegian cabins.
Some however not all of us had companions ready for us again residence, and the satellite tv for pc cellphone got here in helpful for staying linked after we had been offshore. My boyfriend on the time, from France, had despatched me off along with his full help, by no means wanting me to overlook an journey. (In the again of my thoughts, nevertheless, I knew we each wanted a break).
Captain Andreas B. Heide, proper, with Jon Grantangen aboard Barba.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
That’s to not say there weren’t romantic adventures off the boat in Norwegian ports en route, though by no means between the crew (and what occurs on and off a sailboat stays there, as any sailor is aware of).
We carried loads of gear with us for adventures of the out of doors selection, too, together with a compressor for filling scuba tanks for diving beneath the ice and paragliders for 2 of the crew, who as soon as soared above a polar bear attempting to find chicken eggs on a cliff.
Visitors to Svalbard are required to journey with heavy responsibility rifles outdoors of the principle settlement in Longyearbyen due to the presence of polar bears. And whereas we by no means needed to hearth a flare gun or an actual gun to scare off a bear, they had been probably the most important device in our package for happening land (solely two of our crew, the Norwegians, had been licensed to shoot).
For me, the rationale for embarking on a visit like this was fairly easy — I felt like I had nothing to lose and all the things to realize at a time in my life after I wanted one thing to push me out of my consolation zone as a journey author accustomed to luxurious journeys with little effort required.
I needed to get again to my true traveler roots, and setting sail with a bunch of men — most from nations the place girls and men are fairly egalitarian — appeared like a great way to do it.
I had private angst driving me, too. It took me virtually 40 years to get there, however I lastly reached the purpose the place I knew I needed children. I simply wasn’t certain if I used to be in the precise relationship to have them.
Setting off with four adventurous guys into the Arctic ice appeared like a great way to place off making any choices a bit longer whereas having fun with life to the max and seeing what would possibly drop into my lap.
The archipelago of Svalbard is residence to greater than 3,000 polar bears.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
Where bears outnumber individuals
Svalbard is a glacier-covered archipelago roughly 600 nautical miles off the northern coast of Norway that is thought of Europe’s final true wilderness. It’s residence to roughly 2,600 individuals, together with a slew of scientists and over 3,000 polar bears.
Once we left the comforts of the comfortable villages alongside the Norwegian mainland, the three-day crossing to Svalbard’s southern tip gave us time to consider the wilderness that was ready.
Each of us took turns “on watch,” steering the boat and manning the sails to navigate throughout two-hour-long stints that continued across the clock. As we approached Svalbard, it turned clear that navigating was nothing prefer it had been alongside the mainland.
The waters weren’t as properly charted on maps, for starters, and the added threat of hitting floating ice was a continuing fear in a fiberglass boat that would go down in minutes following an encounter with ice at cruising pace.
The men hardly babied me as the one girl onboard, at the same time as I hung my seasick head off the rails “calling the moose” (that is Norwegian for shedding your lunch).
There had been instances when the captain simply left me to it with the flailing sails on deck and a panicked look on my face whereas he went again to sleep with the others beneath — however being thrown into the deep finish is one of the simplest ways to be taught, I noticed.
Heide and I had been each on deck one foggy night after we obtained an enormous shock — a whale that appeared out of nowhere inside a yard or so of the boat’s port facet. It got here and went like an apparition, since we had been clipping alongside in uneven seas.
The solar by no means units in the summer time, so the crew had fixed daylight for recognizing ice.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
Dodging icebergs in the darkness, no less than, wasn’t one thing we needed to fear about — crusing in the Arctic in the course of the summer time means round the clock daylight. And between all the thrill, nauseating swells and the truth that it by no means obtained darkish, sleep was arduous to come back by.
Once we left the consolation of the final ports in Svalbard — Longyearbyen adopted by Ny-Ålesund, a analysis city the place we partied like rock stars with scientists on a Finnish yacht, glacier ice cubes floating in our whiskey — we had been really on our personal, the boat our floating help system.
For 40 days, there was no web, to not point out wherever to provision for meals and gas (we had jerry cans of diesel strapped to the deck and refilled our water tanks with soften water from icebergs). I had the boat’s larder stocked with dried beans, potatoes, cabbage and different meals in it for the lengthy haul, and as soon as we ran out of contemporary produce and meat, we stored pleased with Arctic char we fished from the streams.
With no web entry to distract us, we would lengthy debate matters you can normally clear up with a easy Google search. Early on, we questioned if polar bears might climb aboard Barba from the water (“do polar bears board boats?” would have offered some fast solutions). But with out immediate Google satisfaction, we mentioned for an hour how our first polar bear encounter would possibly go.
The guys dubbed a jam-packed, below-deck storage locker accessed through a tiny door on the boat’s stern the “bear bunker.” They teased me (in any case, I used to be the one crew member who’d by no means shot a gun) that I might sequester myself there if one ever clambered aboard.
Losing monitor of time beneath the midnight solar
When our first up-close bear encounter got here, nevertheless, Google was removed from our minds.
Early one morning on the island of Nordaustlandet on the west coast of Svalbard, with a lot of the crew nonetheless sleeping beneath deck, Heide sounded the alarm.
“Polar bear! Swimming toward the boat!,” he shouted. What I believed was a joke meant to ship me scurrying for the bear bunker turned out to be the true deal. We popped up on deck to see a polar bear paddling towards Barba, just some yards off stern.
We had our flare weapons and rifles prepared, as one should with animals identified to actively stalk people But in the tip, a picket pole we used for pushing ice out of the way in which whereas motoring sufficed for retaining the bear at bay whereas we watched in awe.
A persistent juvenile — and most definitely hungry as there was no sea ice in the world for looking seals (the captain had been diving in the identical water the day earlier than) — the animal made a number of makes an attempt to board us earlier than giving up. We had a concept that the cod drying on Barba’s rails attracted the bear, however had it shocked us onboard, we might have simply discovered ourselves on the menu.
A picket pole used to shove away ice got here in helpful in the course of the crew’s first up-close polar bear encounter.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
During the weeks that adopted, as we circled the complete archipelago, we had six different polar bear encounters. One lumbered throughout the seashore like a brontosaurus, stunning me out the galley window whereas I used to be prepping tuna sandwiches for lunch.
Another stored two of the crew hostage inside a hunter’s cabin on the seashore, the place they’d been making an attempt to warmth up a sauna so we might wash up. The bear paced again and forth outdoors whereas these of us on the boat stored in VHF contact with the crew to allow them to know when it lastly moseyed on.
Along with sea birds in every single place (feisty Arctic terns defending their nests, and large glaucous gulls that made the Florida selection appear like finches), there have been Arctic foxes, curious reindeer and, as soon as, an elusive pod of belugas that moved too rapidly for us to snorkel alongside (sure, we tried).
As we made our means across the archipelago these weeks, we misplaced all monitor of time beneath the midnight solar that bobbed drunkenly above however by no means dipped near the horizon.
It was exhilarating and exhausting. We’d wake at midday, eat breakfast at Three p.m., and lastly nod off to sleep 12 hours later. If we bothered to have a look at the clock, that’s.
Time has no significance with the mix of no darkness, no shops or eating places, no web to distract you, no busy work to busy you — and no person else round for lots of of miles. Our solely job was staying alive and having fun with all that wilderness.
When we lastly made it so far as the ice would allow us to go, to 81 levels north in the beginning of the dense pack ice surrounding the North Pole, Heide and I strapped on our scuba tanks and dived beneath a small berg, trusting our crew with their rifles prepared above water to throw a flare and alert us if a bear approached.
Afterward, all of us toasted our massive journey atop the identical iceberg with a bottle of Schnapps — then we jumped again onboard in a rush, because the pack ice was closing in round us. A harrowing hour adopted as we made our means south, again towards the open water, because the ice and the altering wind path threatened to squeeze us in.
We used picket poles to push it away till we had been lastly out, each crunch and creak on the hull a reminder of our fragile residence.
Nearly hunted to extinction in Svalbard over the course of centuries, walruses are making a comeback
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
Walruses on the rise
One of our final stops in Svalbard was Kapp Lee in the east, the place lots of of walruses hunt for shellfish (their mouths a robust vacuum that sucks clams from the ocean ground) and haul themselves onto the darkish sandy seashore to socialize and sleep.
Nearly hunted to extinction in Svalbard over the course of centuries, the animals are making a comeback. And it was a privilege to seek out ourselves and our tiny boat amongst them and the ice hugging the shore.
There, Grantangen, who all the time helped me with the laundry and talked books with me, too, taught me some navy expertise as we military crawled on the sand, silent as church mice, shimmying quietly on our bellies to inside inches of 1 loud night breathing walrus.
The animals are as agile as ballerinas in the water, however extra awkward on land, the place their eyesight is poorer, too. The sleeping walrus was one in a herd of lots of of juvenile and sub-dominant males (known as a bachelor group), however we reckoned we might outrun the animals on land, even when they’d absolutely maul us in the water. Still, my coronary heart thudded in the sand as I watched drops of slobber glisten on its ivory tusks.
Ivan Kutasov sits atop an iceberg floating off Nordaustlandet, Svalbard’s second-largest island.
@terragraphy/Daniel Hug
Home is the place the anchor drops
It was late August. And this far north, autumn roars in like a lion. It was time to sail south to the house port — again to the comforts of mainland Norway, again to our lives.
I turned 40 the day earlier than I stepped off Barba for good. My French boyfriend dressed like a captain to greet me in a chivalrous gesture I will not neglect, there to accompany me residence to the south of France. But I used to be modified.
I quickly realized we had been making an attempt to make one thing occur that wasn’t in the playing cards from the start.
Those months in the Arctic taught me greater than I knew about risk-taking and survival — the right way to learn the indicators higher in on a regular basis life and go together with your intestine.
In a belated celebration of our 40th birthdays with my greatest mates in Jamaica later that yr, I met a bachelor Cuban on a seashore with no walrus in sight. It was like hitting a pace bump — or maybe extra like throwing out a drag anchor from a sailboat to cease you from barreling alongside in excessive winds in the mistaken path. In a rush, the Frenchman and I cut up.
Now, when the times mix into one another on land — and with two half-Cuban toddlers underfoot, with no far-flung travels on the horizon for the foreseeable future — I journey again in my thoughts to the place the place I dived beneath an iceberg at 81 levels north and snorkeled beneath a chicken cliff prowled by polar bears. To the place I as soon as crawled shut sufficient to a walrus to look at its whiskers twitch.
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