7 minute read
A Life on Ice: In Conversation with Greg Mortimer
It’s not every day you get a ship named after you. To celebrate the Greg Mortimer’s launch, we caught up with the veteran polar expedition leader
Land of the polar bears Spy polar bears swimming next to icebergs
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predator, eat anything they can find, so there’s an edge to the wildlife there. Plus, animals and birdlife are disseminated throughout the Arctic; they’re not found in big populations, like the penguin colonies.
Do you have a favorite species? In the Antarctic, it’s elephant seals. They are extraordinary creatures. As pups they’re gorgeous – their big eyes look at you plaintively and you just want to cuddle them. When they are fully grown, though, elephant seals are threetonne brutes. On land they’re like a very ungainly slug; in the water they are like nuclear submarines. The polar bear is also an extraordinary being – but oddly enough, I’ll go for the walrus, a bizarre animal that is hard to get your head around. They look like they’ve been put together as a bad joke, and they behave like that, too; they’re fantastic. A walrus once put a tusk through the side of my Zodiac, which was unusual. We were cruising along, then one big guy came across and punctured it. So, you’ve got to be careful of walruses, but at the same time, they’re generally extremely timid.
Disgruntled walruses aside, what are some of the most memorable experiences you’ve had on your expeditions? Seeing whales in the Davis Sea off the coast of east Antarctica; it’s a very wild place. My crew and I had an amazing day when we saw at least 100 whales of different species, in particular a small flotilla of blue whales. We were in an icebreaker going at 15 knots (that’s the best part of 18 miles per hour), and the blue whales were just racing past us. It was like we were standing still.
In terms of on-ice experiences, it would be seeing a polar bear hunt. I saw one, with its huge frame, jumping up and down on the ice because it was stalking a seal and
Polar predators (from left) See a gentoo penguin breeding colony with young chicks in the Antarctic; a polar bear making tracks in Spitsbergen, Svalbard
Arctic adventurers (from top) Spot a walrus lying on snow and paddle past a glacier on a kayaking adventure in Spitsbergen
could sense its hidey-hole. I then saw the polar bear pick up the seal and drag it out across the ice, before devouring the animal.
And here’s something you don’t expect. Near the North Pole, you can sometimes see tree trunks sticking up out of the whiteness.
They’ve come out of the big rivers of Siberia and get trapped in the ice.
What inspired you to start offering polar expedition experiences to others? In the 1990s, I was invited to go as an expedition leader on one of the first of the Russian ships that were emerging from the embers of the Soviet Union, by a friend who’d started an Antarctic travel company.
I saw firsthand the effect that the cocktail of polar experiences has on people. It fired my imagination and I returned home buzzing. Being in the polar regions is such an otherworldly experience that it has a big impact on visitors; their eyes are opened – and that’s a great energy to be around. To see the most jaundiced of city lovers have their eyes opened by the power of this great wilderness, that still recharges my battery.
So, yes, I wanted to take people to places you can’t get to otherwise. To have an impact on their thinking. For them to see real wilderness, and understand how puny man is in comparison.
THE SHIP Special features
• The Greg Mortimer is the first expedition cruise ship to feature an X-BOW™, a cutting-edge inverted bow that will make open ocean crossings smoother.
• Fold-out, hydraulic viewing platforms for unobstructed observation of passing marine life.
• Special platform for easier and quicker launching of Zodiac boats and kayaks.
• Virtual anchoring technology, causing minimal disturbance to the seabed.
If people are keen to add additional adventure activities to their polar expedition cruise, what do you typically recommend? Climbing and diving is for the experienced only, but I think kayaking is a really cool thing to do. I’d encourage anyone to get a bit of practice beforehand, though, so you can feel comfortable in the boat and really make the most of the polar experience.
The joy of it is you’re down on the waterline, with the freedom to propel yourself. You hear the ice slide alongside your kayak. There is no engine noise; there’s deep silence. There’s an intimacy about that, whether you’re in the Arctic or Antarctic. Also, it can be an even better way to see wildlife, given that there’s no engine noise – although like I said, in the Antarctic creatures don’t have predators on land so you can move respectfully and freely on the edges of them.
Hiking, too. I like to take people on hikes, get out and about, stretch their legs and move around. It’s actually easier in the Arctic, as in the Antarctic your routes are limited by crevasse fields, and you get absorbed by the wildlife.
What are you most excited about regarding this new ship – your namesake? The design: it’s wild. It’s the first of its kind in the world, a whole new class of vessel. The bow is so bold in its shape, but the entire vessel is very sophisticated.
So much experience from the last 25 years or so has gone into this ship – its functionality, its environmental credentials, the ability to get on and off it easily. All these things are impressive to me.
One aspect of a typical day on a polar expedition cruise (as well as any wet and dry landings) are the daily on-board lectures. How important are these lectures to you? Very. We have talks every day when we’re not occupied on shore. We have biologists and physicists and geologists, all kinds of specialists; it’s a pretty good classroom. Sometimes we have a talk based on what we’re going to do the following day, but I tend to like not giving away too much information, allowing people to discover the day for themselves. Also, as with all polar expeditions, we don’t always know where we’re going to go, and the ship might need to change direction in the middle of the night.
What do you think the future hold for the polar regions? We’re seeing the results of climate change in the Arctic, perhaps less so in the Antarctic because of the sheer volume of ice there. In the Arctic, you’ll actually see the impact of climate change, with water pouring off huge ice shelves.
Care is required when it comes to travel to the polar regions, and we’re definitely going to need even more rigid management in the next five to ten years.
What’s next for you? I’ve recently been very tied up with the new ship, but there’s something else I’ve been working on that’s really important: I’m delighted to say that all our expeditions are now carbon neutral. I think it’s a necessity.
TRAVEL ESSENTIALS Flight information: Flight time from New York to Ushuaia, Argentina (where you board your Antarctic cruise) via Buenos Aires (where you’ll spend a night) is around 15 hours. For the Arctic, flight time is seven hours from New York to Oslo, where you’ll catch a three-hour connecting flight to Longyearbyen in Svalbard, the Norwegian Arctic.
When to go: Cruising in Antarctica is possible between late October to March. The Arctic has a shorter window: visit between May and September.
Get me there: ∞ A 15-day tailor-made trip to Antarctica, including two nights in Buenos Aires, starts from $11,375pp. ∞ A 7-night cruise to Svalbard starts from $6,520pp. ∞ For more information, please call one of our polar regions specialists on 1-855-828-8392.
