Crui­ses in Spits­ber­gen now only with 30 per­sons in total

The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has put more rest­ric­tion on crui­ses in Spits­ber­gen: they are now only allo­wed for ships car­ry­ing 30 per­sons in total – that is, pas­sen­gers and crew tog­e­ther. Day trips wit­hout over­night stays on board are not con­cer­ned by this rest­ric­tion.

The govern­ment says that the dif­fi­cul­ties a Covid-19 out­break would bring on any lar­ger ship would be dif­fi­cult to con­trol, hence the new rest­ric­tion.

The Le Bore­al (here seen in Lief­defjord in 2015) was one of only a few ships at all that have been able to do crui­ses this sum­mer in Spits­ber­gen.

In June, the govern­ment ope­ned the pos­si­bi­li­ty to do crui­ses in Spits­ber­gen. But alre­a­dy then, rest­ric­tions such as a reduc­tion of pas­sen­ger num­bers by 50 % kept many tour ope­ra­tors and ship owners from start­ing the sea­son in Spits­ber­gen at all. After a Covid-19-out­break on MS Roald Amund­sen, also Hur­tig­ru­ten stop­ped their expe­di­ti­on crui­ses com­ple­te­ly. Bey­ond Hur­tig­ru­ten and Ponant (Le Bore­al), only a very few smal­ler ships were acti­ve with crui­ses over seve­ral days this year in Spits­ber­gen, such as Ori­go, who mana­ged to do a handful of trips, and Cape Race, who just finis­hed one suc­cessful­ly, only to can­cel the rest of the sea­son becau­se of the recent intro­duc­tion of qua­ran­ti­ne for tra­vel­lers from Ger­ma­ny. Cape Race will now try her luck in Scot­land – fin­gers crossed!

The govern­ment has announ­ced to re-con­sider this most recent rest­ric­tion until 01 Novem­ber. I would say: no rush. Then the sea­son is over any­way, if it has ever hap­pen­ed in the ongo­ing Coro­na-year at all.

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