EYOS · Svalbard · M/Y BOLD · Longyearbyen Round Trip, 1 to 11 July 2027

01Embark

Thu 01 Jul

Longyearbyen

Longyearbyen & Isfjorden

Embark · Isfjorden · Alkhornet

Longyearbyen sits at 78 degrees 13 minutes north, the largest settlement in Svalbard and the northernmost town in the world with scheduled flights, connected through Oslo and Tromsø. It is a few minutes from the airport to the yacht. Board in the afternoon and, if embarkation allows, make the first landing the same day inside Isfjorden. Alkhornet stands over the northern side of the entrance, a horn of rock with fulmars and Brünnich's guillemots on its faces and a strip of deep green tundra beneath it, grazed by Svalbard reindeer, with Arctic foxes working the base of the cliff. Sail late in the evening, south down the west coast.

02South

Fri 02 Jul

Hornsund

Gnålodden · Tidewater Glaciers · Polish Station

Hornsund is the southernmost fjord in Spitsbergen, a run of bays backed by glacial valleys and sharp peaks. Gnålodden is a bird cliff with a strip of unusually deep green tundra beneath it, fed by the colony above it, and one of the better places in the archipelago to be put ashore under a colony of guillemots and kittiwakes. At the head of the fjord, Brepollen is ringed by tidewater glacier fronts, and the tenders work the ice-filled bays for seals hauled out on the floes. Arctic foxes and reindeer are on the tundra, and polar bears work this coast. The Polish Polar Station here was set up in 1957 and has run year-round since 1978. Sail at six in the evening for Bear Island, 190 nautical miles south, overnight.

03Bear Island

Sat 03 Jul

Bear Island (Bjørnøya)

Bjørnøya

Six Hours in the Zodiacs · Bird Cliffs · Sea Caves

Bjørnøya raises in the morning after a night at sea, usually out of fog. This is the day the itinerary is built around. It is the southernmost island of Svalbard, named by Willem Barentsz in 1596 after his crew met a polar bear swimming offshore, and it is a nature reserve with no harbour and no settlement beyond the manned weather station in the north. Spend six hours in the Zodiacs along the south coast. The cliffs run several hundred metres straight out of the water and are broken into stacks, arches and sea caves you can drive a tender into, and in July they carry one of the largest seabird colonies in the North Atlantic. This is, by a clear margin, one of the finest Zodiac cruises anywhere in the world. Sail northeast in the evening for the east side of the archipelago, 205 nautical miles overnight.

04East Side

Sun 04 Jul

Storfjorden & Edgeøya

Kapp Lee · Walrus Haul Out · Whaling Remains

Arrive at midday in Storfjorden, the wide sound that separates Spitsbergen from the two big islands on its east, Barentsøya and Edgeøya. Both islands and the water around them have been a nature reserve since 1973. The day runs at Kapp Lee, the northwest corner of Edgeøya, where walrus haul out on the gravel beach and are approached on foot, slowly, to the distance the guides set. The west coast of Edgeøya carries the remains of European whaling, and the island was the main ground for Russian overwintering hunters between 1700 and 1850. The reserve is known for its polar bears, reindeer, walrus, seabirds and geese, and the east side of Svalbard is a different place from the west: the last warmth of the Gulf Stream is gone and the slopes are bare.

05Bears

Mon 05 Jul

Freemansundet

Edgeøya, Barentsøya & Freemansundet

Polar Bears Ashore · Reindeer · Geese

Freemansundet is the sound that runs between Barentsøya and Edgeøya. The day is spent on both shores and in the sound itself. This is polar bear country in summer: bears are met on the scree slopes and gravel plains above the water, watched from the tenders and from the deck, and landings are made only where the guides have judged the ground clear. Svalbard reindeer graze the valleys, geese nest on the flats, and the tenders run the coast for walrus and seals. Sail late in the evening, north up Storfjorden toward the southern entrance of Hinlopen.

06Nordaustlandet

Tue 06 Jul

Nordaustlandet

South Hinlopen & Palanderbukta

Palanderbukta · Ice Caps · Walrus

Come into the southern end of Hinlopenstretet, the strait between Spitsbergen and Nordaustlandet, and work the Nordaustlandet side. This is the most high-Arctic part of Svalbard, a nature reserve since 1973, with drift ice on the water for most of the year, and it is polar bear and walrus ground. Palanderbukta and the glacier-lined coast around it are stark and ice-draped, and landings here are rare. Walk the austere tundra, where the annual freeze and thaw has shattered almost every boulder along its fissures, with the ice caps in view: the one on Nordaustlandet is one of the biggest in the Arctic after the Greenland Ice Sheet.

07Hinlopen

Wed 07 Jul

Alkefjellet

Dolerite Spires · A Quarter-Million Seabirds · Floes

Hinlopenstretet is a dynamic, ice-influenced channel, and it holds some of the most dramatic wildlife viewing in the archipelago. Alkefjellet stands on its western side, a wall of dolerite columns and spires where Brünnich's guillemots breed in tens of thousands of pairs on the ledges, kittiwakes among them, and Arctic foxes working the scree beneath for what falls. Take the tenders along the base of the cliff. The floes in the strait draw walrus, ringed seals and polar bears, particularly in early summer. Continue north up the strait in the evening.

08The Ice

Thu 08 Jul

The Ice Edge

North Hinlopen & the Ice Edge

Toward 81°N · Pack Ice · Ice Watch

Out of the north end of Hinlopen and north toward 81 degrees, until you meet the ice. In July the edge of the pack usually sits somewhere north of 80 degrees, and its exact position changes with the season and the wind, so the day is navigated rather than scheduled. Seals rest on the ice and the bears follow them north, so work along the edge in open water where the floes loosen, which is where the hunting is and where bears, bearded seals and ivory gulls are most often found. Nowhere on the planet can a yacht sail closer to a pole. Twenty four hour daylight means there is no wrong time to be on deck. Turn west along the north coast overnight.

09North Coast

Fri 09 Jul

Liefdefjorden

Liefdefjorden & Smeerenburgfjorden

Monacobreen · Polar Bears Ashore · Blubber Town

Liefdefjorden runs in off Woodfjorden under rust-coloured mountains, and Monacobreen closes the head of it with a broad tidewater front that calves into the fjord. This corner of the archipelago is one of the better places to find polar bears that have been left on land for the summer, searched for from the deck and then from the tenders, with reindeer and Arctic foxes on the tundra. In the afternoon run west to Smeerenburgfjorden. Smeerenburg, on Amsterdamøya at its mouth, was the Dutch whaling station whose name means Blubber Town, and the fused remains of the try works are still visible in the gravel. Walrus often haul out on the same beach. Danskøya, next door, is where Andrée launched his balloon for the pole in 1897 and was not seen again for thirty three years.

10Glaciers

Sat 10 Jul

Krossfjorden & Kongsfjorden

Lilliehöökbreen · Kayaking · Ny-Ålesund

Krossfjorden and Kongsfjorden run in side by side. Lilliehöökbreen closes the head of Krossfjorden with a glacier front several kilometres wide that curves away on both sides, and this is the place to launch the kayaks if the ice allows, which is the right way to register the scale of a calving face. Go ashore at Signehamna, where the remains of a German wartime weather station sit in the moss. In Kongsfjorden the Tre Kroner peaks stand over the fronts of Kongsbreen and Kronebreen. Ny-Ålesund, on the south shore, is the northernmost permanent settlement in the world and now an international research station, and the mooring mast used by Amundsen and Nobile to launch the airship Norge over the pole in 1926 still stands on the tundra behind the huts. Sail in the evening for Isfjorden.

11Disembark

Sun 11 Jul

Longyearbyen

Disembark · Flights via Oslo or Tromsø

Come alongside at Longyearbyen in the morning. Disembark after breakfast. Longyearbyen connects to Oslo and Tromsø, and there is enough in the town, from the Svalbard Museum to the old mine workings on the hillsides, to justify staying a night at the end.