Journey to the North Where North Ends — Part 3 Arriving at the Pole

Today might be the day! Only 180 miles to go before arriving at the North Pole! Anxiety built as rest of the Quark expedition crew busy trying to get ready for the plan for arrival. 180 nautical miles do not seem to be much if you are sailing in the open sea. Sailing through hard packed ice is an entirely different story. Even the largest nuclear icebreaker had to grind it through. Every so often, the ice was way too thick to pass through. The crew will back up the icebreaker and try again.

Even more difficult was to try to land at exactly 90 degrees north. With the constant flow of ice and ship’s own momentum, arriving at a fictional point in the midst of ice and water requires the best of the helmsmen and captains. After three tries, our ship 50 Years of Victory arrived at the North Pole at 1:53 am June 2018. The crowd burst into a festive mood with the bridge sounding its horn to signal our official arrival. Glasses of Prosecco were passed out while flags were raised. A special moment not only for the passengers but also for the crew on board. To me, there is one more thing to celebrate at the same time, my birthday.

A birthday that I will never forget celebrated on the very top of the earth. But the day could not be properly celebrated without doing all the on-ice activities. After a few hours of sleep. We quickly donned our landing clothes to get in on the actions. Copious amount of pictures were taken to commemorate this moment. To keep my parents in the loop, I called my parents from the satellite phone. (Note: For Quark Expedition passengers, we were each allowed one 2-minute phone call home)

There is one more activity that needed to be done: polar plunge. Having previously polar plunged in Antarctica before, I was confident about my ability to maintain warmth. But the Arctic sea had other ideas. The 18 knots wind already brought down my body temperature before I even plunged. By the time I hit the water, my fingers and toes were already numb. However painful that was, I wasn’t going to let it ruin my birthday plunge. (Note: if you plunge here, you may get a surprise at the end of the trip. I won’t ruin it for you. You just have to do it and see for yourself.)

Time flies when you are having fun. It’s already time to come back on board. We begrudgingly said goodbye to the North Pole to start sailing back to Murmansk. However, the jubilation continued on our 50 Years of Victory for the newly engaged couple and my birthday. Quark staff made sure that I could celebrate properly by making a cake on board. For the newly engaged expedition crew, loads of congratulations and Proceso were put in order. We chatted and drank well into the night to commemorate this eventful and fantastic day.