Realm of the Polar Bear In Depth - M/V Greg Mortimer

Arrive into Oslo (OSL) where you will be met on arrival and transferred to your hotel. Upon arrival, please visit the Expeditions hospitality desk to collect your luggage cabin tags. Enjoy free time at your leisure.

This morning, please ensure your cabin luggage is fitted with cabin tags clearly labelled with your name and cabin number. Enjoy breakfast at the hotel before transferring to the airport for your charter flight to Longyearbyen for embarkation. Any valuables or personal items should be kept on you throughout the day.\u8239?Enjoy a guided tour of Longyearbyen. On the drive to Camp Barentz, located in the Advent Valley, your guide will give you an introduction to Longyearbyen's fascinating history. Once at Camp Barentz, enjoy a presentation in the large 'lavvo' - a traditional building common in northern Norway. You will also have the opportunity to meet the friendly huskies and perhaps pick up some souvenirs. A visit to the Svalbard Museum is included back in town before embarking the vessel in the late afternoon. After the tour, you will be transferred directly to the pier for embarkation in the late afternoon. Settle into your cabin before the important safety briefings. We will set sail in the early evening.

Wake up to spectacular alpine peaks and glacier valleys of Spitsbergen's rugged west coast. Over the next two days, we hope to visit Magdalenefjorden, where we will Zodiac cruise at a safe distance from the aqua-blue ice cliffs of the 14th July Glacier. Moving onto Waggonway Glacier, we'll take long walks among summer flowers, keeping alert for reindeer and Arctic fox. Thanks to the nutrient-rich Gulf Stream and relatively mild temperatures, Atlantic puffins and guillemots fill the cliffs.

Look out for bearded seal, with their precious curled whiskers. If conditions allow, we may visit the remains of a 350-year old Dutch whaling settlement on Amsterdam Island and learn of an ill-fated ballooning attempt over the North Pole. Our itinerary depends on weather, snow and ice conditions and of course, the presence of wildlife.

Rounding Spitsbergen's northwest coast, we enter the Arctic Ocean and the world of pack ice. Ghostly beluga whale rise up in open leads and polar bear stalk ringed, bearded and harp seal. Offshore, walrus feed on clam or haul out onto beaches, especially on Moffen Island - a walrus sanctuary. We visit trapper huts and stay alert for reindeer and Arctic fox. Delightful walks reveal delicious berries and some of the tundra's 164 exquisite flowering plants including purple saxifrage, yellow spider plants and Svalbard poppies. If ice conditions allow, we attempt to cross latitude 80° north before turning south to Woodfjorden.

In Leifdefjorden, you can enjoy an abundance of birdlife ;- breeding eider duck, tern, skua, glaucous gull and black-legged kittiwake, attract polar bear and their cubs.

With 24-hour daylight, there's plenty of time to admire many of the tundra's 164 species of flowering plants, including purple saxifrage, exquisite yellow spider plants and Svalbard poppies.

We attempt to pass through narrow Hinlopen Strait, a channel flanked by austere, cream-coloured slopes, rich in fossils between Spitsbergen and ice-capped Nordaustlandet. This polar desert is a landscape eroded by severe frost. Even in summer, pack ice could bar our way, but there is much to strive for. We Zodiac cruise beneath Alkefjellet, sheer basalt cliffs rising at more than 250 metres - literally buzzing with some 200,000 nests of Brunnich's guillemot.

During shore excursions, we hope to spot eider ducs, Arctic fox and the elusive Svalbard ptarmigan. As we pass Barentsoya and Edgeoya islands, we cross polar bear migration routes and hopefully have a chance to spot polar bear.

This is true expedition cruising, where plans are dictated by ice conditions and our desire to explore. If pack ice allows, we round South Cape, returning to the world of open water and rugged coastal mountains and sail north toward Hornsund and Bellsund, deep fjords with remarkable glaciers and wildlife.

If ice stops us on the east side, we will adjust our itinerary, backtrack and delve deeper into the wonders of Spitsbergen's north and west coasts, including a visit to colonies where hundreds of thousands of little auk nest, darkening the sky as they commute to their fishing grounds.

During the early morning we cruise back into Longyearbyen. Bid farewell to your Expedition Team and enjoy some free time in Longyearbyen before transferring to the airport for your charter flight back to Oslo.