KAYAKING CO-WORKER PADDLING SOLO OFF SVALBARD'S WEST COAST

Tim writes:
"I'm back and alive, after 6 days and 125 km of paddling. No polar bear sightings but I saw some other folks kayaking and a few ships. The secenery was fantastic: wide open expanses, glaciers, mountains and seascapes. Had one layover day to climb a peak in the sun, first time ever with a 30-06 on my back."
(That's one for the record, Tim. It'll look great on your outdoor resume!)
Tim had borrowed a kayak from our company, Quark Expeditions, the very one he uses when we lead our kayaking day trips. He'd brought camping gear from home but had rented a scare gun and trip wire to surround his camping site in case of incoming bear. I'm beyond envy and hoping to duplicate at least a portion of his trip. I tried to get a sense of currents and such but I do know these are not generally treacherous waters, like the west coast of Newfoundland, for instance.
Meanwhile, my sister Susan writes from the East Siberian Sea, aboard the Kapitan Khelbnikov, one of our company's two Russian icebreakers:
"We've had many interesting challenges on the last voyage and now this one. It is a year full of struggles. We've been stuck on shore for 8 extra hours in the fog and had to shut down our helicopter operations due to fog, only to find 2 polar bear on shore with us. VERY close to us all - no guns on shore either. Which maybe in the long run is safer! Then we do not have staff making mistakes shooting each other or injuring the bear - which might upset it! (This is an old joke, our staff are sure shots if need be which we know is not optimal, but then again...). Then delayed 28 hours in Murmansk on departure due to a series of political bureaucratic kafuffles.... now a Force 6 gale has slowed us down so we have lost maybe up to 36~38 hours from this 14-day voyage. We have cleared out of Russia, so we are not allowed to land in Franz Josef Land even though in our itinerary we had 3 days planned there! Too much ice along N. Svalbard so the Akademik Shokalskiy (my ship) cannot come that way to meet us. They have our guns and ammo and charts for Svalbard! So, now we have to go south and miss a large part of the planned voyage. And it's all because of the ice and fog, unusual conditions which are due to global warming. The gales are fairly standard. It throws off the itinerary we'd planned a year ago, which is based on prior experience and knowledge of the area. It's not that we're inconvenienced, it's that conditions are changing so rapidly here we hardly know how to plan. And there are still some people asking if global warming is real?"
Susan has been a Sr. Expedition Leader with Quark for over 17 years, in addition to working on other ships previously for a total of nearly 25 years spent at both poles. And she has seen it all! From averting potential helicopter landing disasters, to overturned zodiacs to near misses of varying kinds. SHE'S the EL you want in charge on your ship when the **** hits the fan.