The Living Journey

This morning brings our last day of the Svalbard Expedition 2018 aboard The World. It is always bittersweet as things draw to a close, but glad to have one last day in the incredible arctic sunshine to explore yet another area in the Svalbard archipelago.

Tromso in northern Norway is the stepping off point for many Arctic adventures, including The World’s 2013 Expedition to the White Sea and Franz Josef Land, and is again the stepping off point for The World’s 2018 Svalbard Expedition.

On the first day of the Melanesia Expedition we arrived in Waisisi Bay, a beautiful bay at Tanna Island, our entry point for watching the spectacular eruption of Mount Yasur, an active volcano. We arrived at Tanna late in the afternoon and disembarked from the Ship via Zodiac.

During the Ross Sea Expedition, we cruised the length of the Ross Ice Shelf, en route to the Bay of Whales. The ice shelf is over 300 nautical miles long and it was a full day’s sailing through sunshine,

One of the many stunning days during the Ross Sea Expedition was Ice Tongue day. We first cruised the beautiful Campbell Ice Tongue stretching out into Terra Nova Bay. The sun shone, the waters sparkled, the ice towered, creaking and groaning in the warm temperatures.

What would normally have been just another relaxing “sea day” while traveling from Balikpapan to Parepare during our Borneo excursion, turned out to be quite an exciting marina day. As the vessel made its way toward the equator in flat,

Late last year, the Ship’s passage from Sandakan (Malaysia) to the Derawan Islands (Indonesia) was met with flat calm seas, zero wind speed, and clear skies – conditions ideal for sailing and perfect for spotting marine life.
The highlight of the journey was the pod of seven sperm whales spotted off our starboard around midday.

While the vessel was berthed in Sandakan port, Residents & Guests ventured different paths. Some opted off the vessel to do an overnight Kinabatang River Trip, while others stayed closer to home to sample regional attractions.
Those on the overnight trip journeyed to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.

Our morning began with some careful maneuvering through a forest of tabular icebergs, which were so large they practically dwarfed our Ship.

Soon after, we came to anchor off Brown Bluff, at the northeastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Deception Island was probably first sighted and explored by sealers around 1820. The name stems from the very narrow entrance to the huge flooded inner caldera – the entrance is small enough to easily be missed by a passing vessel out in the Bransfield Strait.

During our five-day journey through Scoresby Sund, a small group of us had a most unusual encounter with a ringed seal while out in the Zodiacs. A seal was spotted on an ice floe, which in and of itself is not unusual,

While high up in Scoresby Sund, kayakers participating in The World’s East Greenland Expedition had three days of amazing adventures.
The group’s first day of sea kayaking began on a red-sand beach on Red Island. We paddled along-shore amongst numerous icebergs,

On the evening of August 25 we came to anchor in a rare shallow spot in Rypefjord. Early the next morning, a few groups set out for some great hikes and kayaking within sight of the Eielson Glacier, named for a Norwegian American aviator,

On the morning of August 25, we sailed east through the narrow Fonfjord. There was ice to the left, and ice to the right, as if in a frozen ticker-tape parade. The buildings on either side of the avenue morphed into 2,000-meter granite peaks.

On the afternoon of August 24, we proceeded west, further into Scoresby Sund, with the intention of making a landing on the north shore. The beach turned out to be completely blocked by ice, so instead we launched Zodiacs and went for a ride amongst the floes and bergs.