Today a completely different image. No special wildlife, scenery or flower, but people doing science. This cruise was a very special one. We had about 50 Dutch scientist onboard, accompanied by different people from the media, politicians and other policy makers, artists and a group of about 30 ‘normal’ passengers. We took this special combination of people on a scientific cruise to Edgeøya, where we spent most of our days. There the scientist would work on a wide variety of scientific research topics (ranging from vegetation analysis, to walrus and polar bear poo, to climatology and even the interaction between scientists and scientists and tourists). The ‘normal’ tourists could sometimes join in different research projects or just have a look on what the scientists were doing.

For me this was a very special cruise. It was really interesting cruise as there were many specialists in a lot of different fields on board. Nearly every evening we had a recap where the scientists would tell a little about their research and I learned a lot of these short talks or the explanation of the scientists in the field. And as we spent a the majority of the time in Storfjord and on Edgeøya, I went ashore on several new landing sites, which may always come in handy in future cruises. It was really nice to travel on Spitsbergen with so many different people who were very enthusiastic about their own field and helping them to work on their projects.