Polar Star

Travel Guide

The Bering Sea

Arkady finds asylum on a Soviet Factory Ship working in the waters of the Bering Sea.  A woman on board is suspected of having been murdered.

The real atmosphere is on board; Claustrophobic, salt in the air, the stench of fish, sea and Russian food made with cabbage…that’s if you can get over the fog of  Russian cigarettes

The Bering sea:

“Water hissed from the net’s plastic hair onto the wooden boards that provided footing on the deck….. As the wind shifted the birds broke into a swirl of white wings.”

The Ship:

Originally when it came down the rails in Gdansk, the Polar Star’s four superstructures had been a dazzling white and the gantries and booms a candy yellow.

Twenty years of saltwater had repainted it with rust. The Top decks had accumulated wooden planks, full barrels of lubricated oil and empty barrels for fish oil, the refuse of piled nets and floats.

Now, seen from a distance with a good view of the hull battered by unloading side trawlers in bad weather, the Polar Star resembled not so much a factory ship as a combination factory-and-junkyard cast into the sea and making improbable headway through the waves.