Today’s Daily Program:
We set the clocks back last night, gaining us an extra hour’s sleep. What bliss. We’ll get one more, too, and then no more time zone changes for the rest of the trip. Certainly better than the 7 hours we lost travelling from Papeete to Valparaiso.
We wake to this:
The swell picked up in the evening and overnight, but started to settle out in the morning.
I think we perhaps topped out just over 2 metres? The captain hasn’t named numbers, and instead has simply described the sea state as ‘moderate.’ It never got truly bad, but there was the rare double bounce – the combination of swells from two different angles – that juddered us awake in the night.
For those of us doomscrolling Windy, every wave and gust is somehow indicative of whether we’re going to make our landing at Jan Mayen tomorrow. And it’s easy to be pessimistic – only approximately 2,500 visitors landed there in 2025, putting it almost on par with Tristan d’Cunha as one of the rarest-visited islands. (Pitcairn is in its own category with fewer than 1,000 people yearly.)
But by morning we were much improved – so we’ll hope that bodes well for tomorrow’s landing attempt.
Time for breakfast. I order eggs over easy with sausage and hashbrowns. (Want toast? That’s a separate order from the buffet.) It’s all done perfectly, so of course I did not photograph it. Maybe next time.
My wife goes off to the lecture on polar bears:
I would not like to be the human in this perp walk
We cover the usual interesting facts – the polar bears’ habitat is the tundra except for those who live near Churchill, Manitoba where it’s Taiga. They are so well-insulated they are practically invisible to infrared scanners. They have black skin which helps protect them from ultraviolet radiation and effectively absorbs heat. Their skin also produces oils which repells water, a necessary evolution since they can swim more than 100 km without stopping. If they need to rest while swimming they float on their back.
Polar bears are specialized seal hunters, particularly ringed seals and as the ice decreases so does their seal hunting grounds. The females with cubs in particular rely on ringed seals which build dens of snow on the ice to give birth in. After fasting for around eightmonths through the pregnancy and birth of her cubs the females are desperate for food, in particular reliable easy to access food such as the ringed seal pups.
Polar bears are solitary except during the mating season and in the event that there is a whale stranding. In that case over 200 bears have been documented feasting on the whale carcass for weeks.
Gives new meaning to the phrase, “All you can eat”
And the reminder of how to deal with bears ends with the adage:
“If it’s black, fight back,
if it’s brown, hit the ground,
if it’s white, goodnight.”
Regular bear spray is apparently ineffective on polar bears – they are just too big and fast – and they are so heavily insulated that shooting to kill is pretty much the only option, as even high-sedative tranquilizer darts take too long to have an effect.
My son and I head to our first general trivia of the cruise, instead. We correctly identify the current name of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the winter Olympic sport that involves both rifle shooting and cross-country skiing (biathalon), but fail to remember the third country whose name starts with J (the first two being Japan and Jamaica – we missed Jordan), nor did we know John Lennon’s middle name that is also a cigarette brand (Winston – not Marlboro, as I panic-guessed). Top score was a mere 8 points out of 20, and we were surprisingly close to that.
We read / wrote / relaxed for a while, then went off to lunch:
Some delicious shrimp and rice noodles this time around
There’s a second round of trivia in the afternoon – and we join forces with a lovely Australian couple. Together, we correctly identify that the top of Mount Fuji is owned by a Shinto shrine (as opposed to the Japanese government), and that the ABC islands are governed by the Netherlands. However, we learn that the .AQ domain name belongs to Antarctica (not Qatar) and that the deepest lake in the world is Lake Baikal in Russia. One of the teams manages a perfect score! (And our answers are marked by other groups, so we know it’s legit.)
Afternoon draws on, and I start to feel downright slothful – so I take a jaunt around Le Lyrial to photograph some of the other common areas.
The Reception area has a beautiful work of art at its centre:
We quite like the other artwork around the ship, too:
Sleek and stylish, like Le Lyrial itself
Next, we swing by the Boutique:
It’s mostly clothing, sunglasses, and binoculars – but they do have some basic essentials like seasickness medicine and toothpaste at Reception. The seasickness meds – Mercalm – are a combination of caffeine and dramamine, because nothing bad ever came of combining uppers and downers (and I thought this wasn’t a party ship)
Then we have the Kids Area on Deck 5:
Made an enemy on the ship? Ponant thoughtfully provides Creepy Dolls with which you can haunt their dreams!
There’s also a secondary games space:
And the photography area:
I also head to our long-favourite restaurant, the Grill:
Including the outdoor pool – more of a plunge pool, but kept at a toasty temperature:
Unlike the shower, which is apparently quite chilly! Better to shower in your room first if you can
Deck 7 is accessible, but not exactly open for business:
Despite this being a non-smoking area, there is still an ashtray sitting about
And some earlier photos from the Observation Lounge, which I neglected to post earlier:
It’s then time to head off for the daily expedition brief:
And for those of you curious to see the full Ponant difficulty scale:
The three aspects of each activity are ‘effort’ (or ‘slope’), ‘obstacles’, and ‘psycho’ (or ‘intimidation’) – so a long hike along a normal path may rank a 1 – 1 – 3 while a short hike with slippery, uneven terrain and the scent of decaying animals might be a 1 – 3 – 4. Almost all of our excursions have been ranked 2 -2 -2 and that feels about right.
David explains that we are still hopeful that a landing will be possible at Jan Mayen tomorrow, but that we will have to navigate both a heavy swell and landing conditions on the beach. There is only one place where we can land at Jan Mayen – Kvalrossbukta, on the western coast – so if that site isn’t suitable then our only option will be a zodiac cruise. May the odds be ever in our favour.
Alex then returns with a follow-up recap (a post-cap?) in which he addresses an earlier question posed by a guest as to whether whales can communicate between species – he notes that different species of whales, dolphins and other marine life can respond to distress calls (or warnings) across species boundaries, and that there are instances of touch as a form of communication – as you might imagine between a moray and a shark.
Though Alex notes that there is still a great deal they do not understand about inter-species communication. It’s great to see another entire mini-briefing delivered as the result of an audience question – very thorough!
Next, Christina discusses the ocean ecosystem, with a particular emphasis on krill:
She notes that the population of krill did not expand despite the decrease in the number of whales, and noted that the loss of whales also decreased the amount of whale defecation in the ocean – a crucial source of nutrients for the phytoplankton that make up the krill’s primary food source. She further notes that krill has recently become the source for popular Omega 3 supplements, and to give farmed salmon a strong red colour. She urges us not to purchase krill-based products in order to protect this vital part of the marine ecosystem.
Lastly, Nicolas (known as ‘Nicolas the Tall’ in his slide deck) provides us with an overview regarding the geology of Jan Mayen, a volcanic island which used to be attached to Greenland:
Due to the tectonic plates around Jan Mayen, it is considered a microcontinent, similar to New Zealand. It separated from Greenland roughly 50 million years ago, but only emerged from the ocean roughly 2 million years ago. It is considered the world’s northernmost terrestrial volcano, and had major eruptions in 1970 and 1985. It has since filled in with ice. There are only 18 scientists and some military personnel living on the island, which belongs to Norway.
I have a few minutes before dinner, so I decide to pay a visit to Le Lyrial’s Hammam (steam bath):
Forgive the distorted photo – the other option was to open the door before taking the picture, which worked even worse
There’s a shower nearby too:
It’s a fair-sized hammam given the size of the ship – you could probably fit 5 or 6 people inside without any difficulty. One other couple shows up while I’m there, but it’s otherwise empty. Towels are available for use, there is no need to pre-book, and there is no additional charge. However, it is only available between the hours of 9:30 am and 7 pm.
We head off for dinner at – you guessed it – the Grill:
Though in our defence, there is beef tenderloin at the carving station tonight – so that’s hard to pass up
For dessert, I’m unable to decide between the chocolate finger or the vanilla and caramel pastry:
Why not both?
I then head down to watch the Northern fulmar’s skimming the waves:
And take in the dance of late-evening light on the water:
Strange to think that we’ve sailed southwest for these past two days, and yet we’re still well within the Arctic circle – though we’re actually starting to see proper sunsets, and get a few hours of much-needed darkness each night.
And on that subject, it’s to put that darkness to useful purpose – to sleep, perchance to dream of setting foot on Jan Mayen.