We sailed around Svalbard on the Sergei Vavilov, organised by Exodus and guided by Paul Goldstein with special guests Ian Stirling and Mark Carwardine. We had some excellent encounters, most notably with Arctic foxes, Svalbard Reindeer, a juvenile Blue Whale and last but not least Polar Bears, including a mother with two cubs-of-the-year. The latter encounter was wonderful and we spent a couple of hours watching them, albeit at some distance, as the cubs played around and were hugely entertaining.

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