For many, the idea of ocean travel conjures of images of huge, overbearing cruise ships crammed with thousands of passengers, where non-stop “entertainment” and restaurants that never close are de rigueur.
This is hardly my idea of fun, let alone any way to spend a vacation. But let’s face it, cruises have developed this reputation.
The following are four boat trips that are likely to please anyone who has misgivings about taking a cruise. (It may or may not help that the boats tend to travel to exotic destinations.)
The Akademik Ioffe
Any trip you take on the Akademik Ioffe is very likely to take place in cold waters. This boat, originally a Russian scientific expedition vessel, has been hired by Arctic and Antarctic expedition companies over the past 20 years. The crew is Russian, but the guides are English-speaking nature experts. The food comes from the many ports of call that the boat makes while repositioning from the South Pole to the North Pole.
There is nothing particularly luxurious about this boat, but its destinations make one feel pampered. That is because the Akademik Ioffe, along with its Zodiac boats, will take you to remote Arctic areas that you would normally never dream of going to. Our trip went from Greenland to Canada’s Arctic, and the boat was filled with birders from around the world who specifically wanted to visit Canada’s and Greenland’s northern regions in the hope of seeing exotic birds that rarely make their way south.
So enthusiasm was high, and along with many northern birds we saw polar bears, walruses, the odd whale, but few people. For me, the highlight was a visit to the port of Illulissat in western Greenland where the huge icebergs that make their way to Iceberg alley in Newfoundland are born. One current trip allows passengers to visit Sable Island in Nova Scotia, one of the few ways of visiting this new national park.
