This article is part of a weekly series on cruising in The Sun Herald, Sydney. If you are interested in being featured, please send an email to jane@janeefraser.com.au
WHO Bev Cornell, of Spotswood in Melbourne, on her eighth cruise.
WHAT Up-close encounters with walruses in the Arctic.
WHERE On the island of Nordaustlandet, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. The group of islands lies north of the Norwegian mainland and east of Greenland.
THE SHIP Bev cruised with her friend Suzy Roche on an 11-day “Spitsbergen Explorer” expedition with Peregrine Adventures. The cruise started and finished in Longyearbyen, on the Norwegian island of Svalbard.
“We were onshore looking at a group of walruses in the distance when we got the message.
“The message was that the action was back where we had left the Zodiacs. When we got there, there was a group of walruses going up and touching the Zodiacs; they were very curious, they wanted to know what they were.
“Apparently one of them had put a puncture in one of the boats last year but this time they were just going up and touching them and having a look. We were very close to them, only a few feet away, which was very exciting, because the other ones we had been looking at were a long way away and were just sitting around in clumps.
