We meet at the harbour in Tromsø, "the Paris of the North", in the afternoon. Cabins, then the skipper's safety briefing, which comes before anything else, and the first meal together at the table. Then the phones go into a box. You put yours there yourself.

You are handed a field journal, a pencil and a chart of the coast we are about to sail, and one question to answer in writing: what do you hope to hear when everything gets quiet? Nobody reads theirs out loud. Then we cast off, and the lights of the city fall away behind us.

We wake in the islands west of the city, most likely around Rebbenesøya, where the archipelago opens towards the sea. Breakfast, then the weather briefing at the table: what the sky is doing, what it means, and what the day looks like. Ashore for a few hours — animal tracks, the meeting of sea and snow, and the first Ten Minute Sit: ten minutes alone, no talking, no photographs. Afterwards, one question: what did you notice?

Then the long leg east, and the sailing becomes the day: watch-keeping, seabirds, learning to read a chart, hot drinks in the cockpit and the last streetlight disappearing astern. In the evening we come alongside at Havnnes on Uløya, a historic trading post and one of the few places north of Tromsø left standing at the end of the war. Ylva carries her own wood-fired hot tub on deck, and this is the night it gets lit, looking straight across the fjord at the Lyngen Alps. Hot water, cold air, and the whole fjord going dark around you.

The big sea day, and the reason the herring brought us this far north. We work the water off Skjervøy and the mouth of Kvænangen, where orca and humpback have gathered to feed in recent winters. We read the birds, the surface and the reports from other boats, and take turns on watch with binoculars.

If we find them, everything else stops — and the phones stay in the box. See the whale, don't film the whale.If the whales are not there - the sea is still full: seabirds diving on the same herring the whales came for, and current lines where the water itself tells you where the fish are. That is the moment the whole food web becomes visible.

That night we anchor close by, and the hydrophone goes down.

A second day in the whale grounds off Skjervøy, and today the science stops being a story and becomes the actual work. A hydrophone goes over the side and the sea comes up through a speaker on deck: the clicks and calls of orca hunting somewhere below the hull, the long low notes of a humpback, the crackle of the water itself — and, when a boat passes, exactly how loud we are in their world. The recordings are part of a research project on underwater noise, and you are on board while they are made.

There are observation sheets for anyone who wants one: how many animals, which species, what they were doing, where and when. Real numbers, collected properly. Being here a second day also means better odds of a proper encounter — and this is the day the camera comes out in earnest, so you go home with pictures of the animals you actually watched. Most people come for the sight of a whale. Almost nobody expects the sound.

We turn south and sail back in among the Lyngen Alps, mountains that rise more than a thousand metres straight out of the fjord. You did not think it was possible to sail through the Alps. Somewhere in Lyngen we go ashore: snowshoes or a walk in low terrain, chosen by the conditions and the avalanche assessment.

Not a performance — one to two unhurried hours with one question underneath: what does it feel like to be properly tired from moving through a landscape?  Back on board for warm food and a swim in the sea first for anyone who wants one. In the evening, the Long Table: one long dinner, candles, no phones, one good question, something good in the glass. This is the evening guests describe when they get home.

The last stretch in to Tromsø, with time on deck and the four blue hours of the day doing what they do to snow and sea. Gentle movement, breakfast, and the last page of the journal, with one question before we sail: what do you want to take home that doesn't fit in your luggage?

Six days ago you sat down to dinner with seven others. This morning you are swapping numbers with them, arguing about who really saw the first blow, and making the kind of plans people make when a week has gone better than they expected. Then the phones come back — all at once, after the goodbyes rather than before them. Six days of messages arrive in ninety seconds. You go home with photographs, a notebook full of your own handwriting, salt in your jacket, and seven people who were there.