 90° NorthMy trip to the top of the World Azam Chowdhury
Andre was a friendly young Russian about 35 years old. He knows very little English. He was trying hard to communicate with me. I told him that I live in Australia but was born in Bangladesh. I wasn’t sure how am I going to make him understand where Bangladesh is. Then I asked him whether he knew where Bangladesh is? He tried hard in his broken English to show he knows Geography very well. I was not sure what he meant by that. He realized that he is not getting through to me, he got up, opened his information folder, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, drew a map of the Indian Sub-Continent and showed me the exact location of Bangladesh, then Dhaka and Chittagong in his map. I was really surprised. He didn’t stop there, he even showed me all the rivers of Bangladesh in his map and where they are flowing into the Bay of Bengal. When I asked how did he know so much about Bangladesh, he told me that when he was in school he won the Geography Olympiad in the entire Russian Federation. He just loves to study geography. I wish I could speak Russian or he could speak a bit more English, then we could have had a wonderful discussion. We left Murmansk at 6:00 p.m.  Murmansk Harbour After dinner he asked me whether I would like to have a drink with him at the bar. I told him I have been travelling for 2 /3 days and was a bit tired. Then he left and I decided to get some sleep. Around 3:30 a.m. he came back to the cabin, I got up with the noise and looked outside and saw the bright sky outside. I asked him is it already morning? He said no, it never gets dark here in summer. We both went to our beds again and after a couple of hours Andre got up and told me he was going to the smoking room for a smoke and ask me whether I smoked. I told him that I didn't. He seemed to be very surprised that I don’t drink or smoke. He came back after an hour and went back to sleep. After breakfast we sat next to a window and watched the fog covered Barents sea for a while. Then I went to my cabin and had a chat with Andre. After lunch I went to the Aft Salon to listen to Kara’s lecture on comparison of Northern Arctic with Antarctica. Kara is a Biologist from Alaska. She travelled extensively in both Antarctica and Northern Arctic. Next day I woke up at 6:30. Looked outside through the window. The sky looked a lot clearer than yesterday. Barents sea is very calm compared to South Atlantic. Only few birds were flying overhead. Apart from that nothing significant was visible. Outside temperature was around – 4°C. I decided not to go out on the deck before breakfast. In the other corner of the room, Andre was still sleeping like a baby. All he does is drink and sleep. Around 8 a.m. I went to the dining room and had my breakfast. As I didn’t have dinner the night before, I was hungry. After breakfast, I saw Andre entering the dining room for his breakfast. Today at 4:15 p.m, we saw the Polar ice shelf for the first time. It was a spectacular sight. Our Icebreaker was steaming ahead at 16-17 knot per hour through the packed ice.  Kittiwake Flying overhead All we could see was white packed ice all around us. I spent some time admiring the sea ice. Temperature was below zero and it started to drizzle. So I decided to return and rest in the cabin. Around 6:30 p.m. there was an announcement about polar bear sighting. I quickly got dressed, grabbed my camera and went to the upper deck. By the time I went there, bear had disappeared in the ice pack. So with a bit of disappointment I returned to my cabin. Andre reminded me that I had an invitation to the Captain cabin for a cocktail drink. I said "really"? He said there was an invitation letter on my desk. I wasn’t sure where it was, so he showed me the invitation card on my desk, which I didn’t even bother to open earlier thinking it is another information sheet they constantly provided. I asked Andre whether he was going too. He said no, it is for invited guests only. He explained that during the trip the Captain invites 6 people for captain cocktail party and I was one of the lucky ones. It was already getting late. So I quickly changed into something comfortable and went to the captain’s Cocktail Party. After drinks he told me, through his interpreter that he never met anyone from Bangladesh in his ship before. I told him that I was honored to have a drink and meet the captain of the world's largest and most powerful nuclear powered Icebreaker. He smiled and said if I wanted I can take a picture with him. I was really happy to see how polite and gentleman he was. After saying good bye to the captain and his interpreter, we left captain’s cabin to the briefing room.  With Captain Valentin Davydyants We had a helicopter briefing at 7:00 p.m. We were told our helicopter will start flying from next day, weather permitting of course. In the Arctic the weather changes every hour, same as I found in Antarctica last year. After dinner I went up to the upper deck to take some more pictures. The wind was too strong and the temperature was 0° degree, so I decided to come back to the cabin. I had a look at all the picture I had taken. At 12:30 a.m. I woke up with the announcement from our team leader Jan that there was a polar bear close to our ship. So quickly I got up, put on some warm cloths again, grabbed my cameras and went to the upper deck. Wow, it was really a very exciting moment of my Arctic expedition. There was a single polar bear wondering around. The captain stopped the ship so that everyone can have a look at the majestic animal from close up. Such a huge ship stopped next to him or her, seemed it didn’t bother the polar bear at all. Our ship stayed motionless for almost 15 minutes. I must admit it was worth every minute. I am sure it will be the highlight of my trip to the Polar region.  Polar bear roaming in the arctic Then the captain decided to leave the bear alone and resumed our course for 90° North. In the morning, I looked outside through my cabin window. Sea ice was all around. All white and our ship going through the pack ice at 17 – 18 knots. We could feel the vibrations and bumps when breaking ice with great speed. In the below deck the noise was unbearable. I really felt sorry for those passengers who were in deck below. With the excitement of Polar Bear sighting, Andre and I both had very little sleep so after lunch we both had an afternoon nap only to wake up with the announcement from our expedition leader, Jan, reminding us again that we will be having BBQ dinner and afterwards there will be an open deck party. The ship was already stopped so that catering crews could organize BBQ and sitting arrangement on the deck. After the BBQ we had music and dance for an hour then at 9:30 ship started to move again for our final destination. I looked through the window, it was foggy and our ship was still crushing through the pack ice. I thought these pack ice must be much harder than the previous days, because noise was unbelievable and the ship was rolling like we are in the middle of a stormy sea. From time to time captain was stopping the ship and reversing some distance then forward again with a new course.  Midnight Sun Later on I asked Jan why the captain is doing that. He said when the ice gets too thick, the captain changes the course so that ship can break through the ice easily. He reminded me that this is the only ship design to break through 10 - 12 feet thick ice. After lunch Jan announced that we will be reaching 89° North soon. That means after that we will have 60 more miles to go before we will reach 90° North. To be continued . . . . . . . .
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Home Page Published on: 21-Aug-2014 
