"I think I'm going back..."

 Home three days and after three nights of troubled dreams it's time to make sense of what happened on the high seas between the Orkneys and Svalbard.

Loads of positives. The voyage was smooth, the ship, accommodation, and crew top class. I was lucky to have as my dinner guests four pleasant companions. Paul from Zurich, who is married to a Greek he met in London in 1972. Paul travels everywhere. After this trip I don't think he's bothering to go home before he's up the Northwest Passage. There's Jeff from Minnesota - lovely man with a very dry sense of humour and a love of cats. Like Paul he's an inveterate traveller - off to South America next. Ron, the professor of electrical engineering, who explained why we had intermittent internet, but couldn't fix it. His wife was discovering Norway on her own as she had caught Covid so wasn't allowed on the ship.   Finally Rob a civil servant who works for the Department of Transport on rail infrastructure. He lives just outside Lancaster, having moved from Westminster, and commutes 2 days a week into the Big Smoke.

There were stunning views, day after day. The Faroes were a delight with its cliffs full of birds, Jan Mayer was slightly disappointing as the volcano was shrouded in cloud while we were there, and we only saw its full magnificence as we were sailing away. The voyage around Svalbard was fine, but after so many days of basalt, snow and ice it palls.

Seeing the kayakers made me wonder whether I should have joined them - they got to places even the Zodiacs couldn't reach. I then remembered kayaking in Antartica in 2018 and how hard going I found it. Also watching them clamouring into their wet suits made me think I'd be completely drained even before getting into the kayaks.

On the negative side, for me the trip was too long with too many days at sea with little to do but look at the waves, go to the gym. sauna or jacuzzi - none attracted me. Several people I spoke to were looking forward to it ending.  Compared with Antartica the Arctic is a desert when it comes to mammals. Rare sightings of polar bears, seals and whales - in Antarctic you tripped over seals, had to get out of way of whales and walruses.

Not sure whether I'll do a similar trip. I felt like a virgin voyager compared to everyone else. They'd been on so many trips and catching up on the missed voyages in 2020 and 2021. A couple were applauded because they were on their third successive trip on the Greg Mortimer (I'd question their sanity. What's wrong with staying a while in one place?) The ship was luxurious, and we were less than half full which did give it a ghostly feel. You'd meet twice as many of the crew as your fellow passengers.   

My mini misadventure in Oslo, in a sense was the highlight; it was pure fear and adrenaline.  And the forty-six meals I shared with my table companions.