We voyaged nine nights from Longyearben on the M/S Virgo, a 42m long single screw (Variable pitch prop) Swedish crewed and registered converted lighthouse tender capable of handling most ice conditions and powered by a rather magnificent two stroke five cylinder Norwegian 1970s manufactured marine diesel, three generators, water making, very comfortably equipped for 12 passengers, a great Swedish chef with a penchant for regular timings, rich sauces and berries of every description. My fellow passengers, American bred for the most part but variably accented, included a number of experienced wildlife photographers. This genre at its best involves some seriously large fast prime telephoto lenses that are extremely expensive and weighty and a bit outside my league but they can pay off if you need to photograph the eyelashes on a polar bear. I took a relatively modest 5,500 or so images. We were accompanied by Yves and Johannes, two brilliant Belgian/Swedish naturalist/photographers with binoculars capable of spotting a polar bear at up to 15km away, a skill that was both amazing and essential. Our cruise captured in order here first took us to the Smeerenburgfjord on the NW corner of Svalbard and them many hours cruising north to the Icefield at 82.4DegN. Fog is common at this time of year and we failed to spot polar bear. We came back around the NE Harald V land a huge glacier with many km of sea frontage. 

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The ship carried two zodiacs and we developed the skill of kitting up and loading quickly whenever there was “something to see” closer up. We spotted six polar bears, including one close to shore and one swimming both which merited a load up and excursion, once at 4am in the 24 hour daylight, so we could get a little closer with aid of telephoto. The timing of such trips could be pretty brutal as marine life does not stick to a schedule. Somewhat disconcertingly however, our naturalists having advised that walruses are not normally aggressive, one female immediately launched an assault on one of our craft and deflated the front air bag. 

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We saw fin and blue whale but no photos worth showing beyond a fin poking out of the water. 

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The temperature was modest, around freezing. There is much evidence of rapid shrinkage in the size of the icefield and glaciers due to climate change although the population of polar bears in the immediate Svalbard region is stable, this type of tour may well be doomed before too long.