Author: Sue Barnard

Delve into a travel book or surf the Internet and it will quickly become clear that Costa Rica has an abundance of wildlife, flora and fauna. But dig deeper and one can find something rather different to the usual destination details. Costa Rica, according to the UK think-tank the New Economics Foundation, has been voted the top country for ‘happiness’ three times in the last decade, in 2009, 2012 and 2016.

Initial thoughts spring to mind of smiling faces of Costa Rican women (known colloquially as ticas) and men (ticos). That will be welcome, but the research captures a broader view. It bases the findings, recorded in its Happy Planet Index, on four elements: how satisfied citizens feel with life overall (their ‘wellbeing’); ‘life expectancy’ (the country boasts a ‘blue zone’, one of only five in the world where residents thrive over the age of 100); ‘inequality of outcomes’ (a calculation based on the two previous categories); and ‘ecological footprint’ (the impact residents have on their environment).

One of the biggest factors influencing Costa Rica’s frequent leading position is its environmental protection. This includes almost all of its electricity coming from renewable sources, and the country being committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2021.

Other factors aiding a more positive environment include the greater expenditure the country has put towards education, health and pensions since abolishing its army in 1949. It now boasts a 97.8% literacy rate; and increased women’s education has been attributed to the declining birth rate. A culture of building social networks of friends, families and neighbourhoods has also been attributed to enhanced happiness and is strong within that ‘blue zone’.

It is noted that while wealthier countries may be seen as successful, they do not necessarily come out tops for happiness. The 2016 Index shows Mexico and Colombia in second and third places behind Costa Rica for happiness, while the UK was 34th and the US 108th.

It will be interesting to see if we detect happiness being noticeably different when visiting Costa Rica compared with other countries through which we have travelled. Of course, heading to the country with an awareness of this might influence our view, but it will give us an additional focus when learning more about the culture. For sure, seeing the immense amount of wildlife, plants and different scenery, particularly in the national parks and rainforests will make us happy, but it could be enlightening to find out if happiness reflects strongly amongst the population and for us to gain some insights about how to live well past 100 years!

Some might consider us unlucky. Unlucky that our Sir John Franklin adventure to the Northwest Passage had to be abandoned within the first 24 hours. At times I might think that myself, but the harsh reality is that we have been extremely lucky, and more than we will ever know.

John and I had just been to the mudroom on a lower deck to change the rubber boots, which had been loaned to us by One Ocean – along with essential wind/waterproof jacket and trousers. My boots were far too big, whereas John had been given two right boots. If he was not to spend the whole adventure walking around in circles, we had to get his changed!

This was to be followed by a zodiac safety briefing – zodiacs are the small inflatable boats which take us from ship to shore. We had just completed the mandatory lifeboat evacuation briefing some 20 minutes earlier.

Having wondered if we had missed the call to attend the second briefing I headed to reception to enquire further. As I almost reached the stairwell taking me down a deck there was an almighty crash and shudder. My initial thoughts turned to an earthquake – it couldn’t be an iceberg as there was no ice in the region. Then milliseconds later there was another crash and juddering. A crewmember rushed past me. This was serious, I thought. I realised I had to get back to John in the cabin. I dashed back so quickly that my Apple Watch recorded my heart rate had increased 300% over my norm. I rushed along the passage, bumping into the captain coming in the other direction. His cabin was next to ours. The thoughts of ‘serious’ turned into thoughts of ‘danger’.

Once in the cabin I hurriedly put my windproof trousers and jacket over the four layers I was already wearing. The cold weather can get to one’s bones almost immediately and putting on this gear is a slow process. We grabbed the lifejackets and awaited instruction. John did his best to reassure me that the evacuation sirens had not been sounded, but as I stared towards our cabin window through which we once saw a low horizon, that horizon was now way up in the air. Our ship was listing to the starboard side – the side our cabin was located.

After some time the ship steadied itself and the many tannoy reports and briefings did much to reassure us that we were not in immediate danger. We were told to go to bed, dressed in preparation should the worst scenario happen – a command to leave the ship. A sister ship was on its way, but there was no knowing when it would arrive. In typical reassuring fashion, we were told of a beautiful sunset and I took myself off to view it. The realisation of our danger was awakened again when I saw a Hercules aeroplane circling overhead. A crewmember, with a strong Russian accent, said: “It’s the coastguard…. About our problem.”

Rather than the 7am wake-up call, we were awoken again at midnight with further reassurances. We found out later this was to ensure we were at least somewhat alert. The  rocks had relinquished the ship’s hull after almost 12 hours and there were tense inspections to see any changes inside the hull.

The sister ship did arrive the following morning, along with a coastguard ship and helicopter. Again, in a most orderly way we disembarked, joining the Akademik Sergey Valivov’s most sympathetic passengers who, although their departure was delayed, at least had completed their trip.

We eventually got back to Edmonton on Sunday, having spent three days basically getting nowhere. Arriving on terra firma we discovered more of our dangers. The hull had been breached and water had come in although into a confined area. Had we not been stalling for time we may well have been going faster. Had we been positioned more to the left or right there were additional dangers too awful to imagine.

So although greatly disappointed that we are not currently delving into Franklin’s voyage history, seeing the wildlife, and gaining knowledge from the feedback of our 35 scientists aboard from the University of Rhode Island Northwest Project, at least we live to tell the tale. Thankfully, I didn’t need that apple sauce after all.

©Sue Barnard 2018

Ah, the perils of conversation… you never know where it will land you!

Hi all. It’s Sue here. As we head to Edmonton for the onward flight to Resolute Bay, I wanted to explain how all this came about. The story actually goes back to the 1980s when I saw an ad for London Walks (a rather long way from the Arctic I have to admit). I had lived in London all my life but knew little about the capital’s history.

I decided that while John attended the Crystal Palace FC home games on a Saturday, I would go on some of the group walks around London. This led to a fascination about the history and, particularly, social history.

At that stage we had travelled a little, mainly sun-drenched visits to typical beach resorts such as Rimini and Salou. We then extended this to two-destination resorts as our interests expanded. Later, in search of something different, we came across a holiday travelling in Guatemala for a week, followed by a week on the beach in Cancun, Mexico. The first week, we felt would satisfy an increasing interest in social history inspired by the London Walks, while the second week would be perfect if we really did not like the travelling… we could chill out on the beach. By the time we reached Cancun, however, we discovered we did not want to stop travelling and, particularly, learning out about the life, people, cultures and scenery in other parts of the world.

Following this, some 20+ years ago, I visited the Destinations Show in London. I was attracted to a stand publicising the Antarctic…views of whales, penguins and remote destinations abounded. In conversation, the lady on the stand offered some sound advice, which stayed with me. “Travel on the smallest ship you can afford.” The key being that only 100 people at a time can be allowed on to pristine, delicate and protected areas (eg the Arctic and Antarctic). If a ship has hundreds of passengers there would never be time for them to disembark. They were wise words. It took 20 years before we were able to take her advice, travelling initially to Antarctica with just 65 passengers in 2012, and then to the Arctic in 2014.

But why this trip to the Arctic now? That is the result of another conversation, this time with my golfing friend Liz Beaumont, previously a bookseller and a font of knowledge on so many things including historic exploration. She introduced me to maritime people such as James FitzJames, and later John Rae who worked for the Hudson Bay Company. Part of Rae’s work was to map, on foot, the areas of the uppermost reaches of the Arctic. I became hooked. John (Cruse) too became fascinated by maritime history.

John Rae grew up in Orkney. The Hudson Bay Company employed several people from Orkney as they were experienced in tough terrain and weathers, similar to that of the Arctic. Rae’s mapping coincided with reports of Sir John Franklin’s missing ships. Rae, on his travels, met with Inuits who spoke of seeing Europeans dressed in inadequate clothing. He was shown items, which were obviously from the ships, and there were oral reports of cannibalism. There was much taboo about this latter aspect in Victorian times (and, of course, today). Rae confidentially relayed his findings to the UK authorities. Unfortunately, the content was reported in the media, to much controversy. Despite Rae’s great efforts, unlike others of his time, he was never knighted, although a campaign to change this is still ongoing.

We were so taken by his story we wanted to visit Orkney and found a guide to take us to the area he grew up in. Not only did we visit his house, but managed to go inside the dilapidated building. That was a special moment for us… amongst the pigeons that now frequent the crumbling rafters!

That visit led us to more readings, this time about Sir John Franklin. About the same time I was in email conversation with the bird expert guiding our Antarctic cruise and told him the one trip we would really like to do is to follow the North West Passage as the great explorers had done. We did not know if anything like that existed. Geoff responded: “If there is one trip you should go on, it is with One Ocean.” We delved further. It covered all the aspects we were looking for and, as John has reported earlier, the company was involved with the finding of the HMS Erebus and Terror in 2014 and 2016.

The rest, as they say, is history. Hopefully we will not be stuck in ice for four years as the Franklin crew were, and at some time we will have wi-fi connection to report our exploits. However, if we don’t there is one more conversation worth adding. We visited the Maritime Museum in Greenwich a few weeks ago to learn more about Franklin’s fatal trip. As we waited for the doors of the lecture theatre to open Michael Palin joined the queue behind us. He told us he was writing a book on the subject (due out in September) and had travelled on the same trip as us a year ago. Asked how it went, he replied: “There was a lot of ice.” With current reports of snow, we wonder what is in store for us during the next two weeks. If you don’t hear further from us seek a copy of the book to find out more! Hmmm… I understand that humans taste a lot like pork. Now did I pack the apple sauce?