Cruising past the desolate coastlines of Svalbard, I was struck by a powerful visual illusion: the mountains felt far more like an ocean than the actual sea beneath them. The harsh, eroded slopes of the Arctic landscape, carved with parallel ridges, resembled massive, frozen waves mid-surge-a colossal ‘sea of mountains’ dwarfing everything around it.
Down at the base, a tiny red vessel sails past, its bright hull acting as a vivid anchor in this overwhelming monochrome expanse. Without the ship, the sheer scale of these Arctic giants would be lost. With it, the scene transforms into a striking meditation on human scale against the silent, timeless magnitude of the Far North.