Sou­thern west coast – 12rd Juli 2015

Sun
12 Jul
2015

The day star­ted exact­ly in the same way as yes­ter­day: calm, almost mir­ror-like water, but den­se fog. Apart from the poor visi­bi­li­ty, con­di­ti­ons were again ide­al for landings at unu­su­al places, expo­sed, dif­fi­cult to reach, usual­ly igno­red. But as calm as it was today, the­re should be oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Initi­al­ly, the visi­bi­li­ty threa­ten­ed to make landings in polar bear coun­try impos­si­ble, but after some careful explo­ra­ti­on, the fog lifted at Kapp Bor­then, so soon ever­y­bo­dy was ashore in a wide, flat coas­tal area, an allu­vi­al melt­wa­ter plain cover­ed with wet tun­dra domi­na­ted by algae in many colours. And in the midd­le of this stran­ge land­scape, an even stran­ger arte­fact: the wreck of a Ger­man figh­ter pla­ne, a Ju 88, that was forced to land near Kapp Bor­then after having recei­ved dama­ge during attacks on an allied con­voi in Sep­tem­ber 1942. A very stran­ge impres­si­on, this desc­truc­tion machi­ne with a blea­ched-out swas­tika in the midd­le of the peaceful arc­tic tun­dra.

Pho­to Kapp Bor­then – 12rd Juli 2015

Our wea­ther luck func­tion­ed equal­ly well later a bit fur­ther south in Hyt­te­vi­ka, at Wan­ny Woldstad’s famous old hut, which is so nice­ly hid­den bet­ween some big rocks. The sun was shi­ning on a tun­dra that is so green that it seems almost unre­al. And ten thou­sands of Litt­le auks just a few met­res fur­ther up the slo­pes. An immense spec­ta­cle, on the rocks, in the air.

Pho­to Hyt­te­vi­ka – 12rd Juli 2015

The fog has dis­ap­peared com­ple­te­ly as we are now ente­ring Horn­sund. The bright evening sun is shi­ning on beau­tiful, famous moun­ta­ins such as Horn­sund­tind, Lucia­kam­men, Hyr­nef­jel­let. Small and medi­um-sized ice­bergs ever­y­whe­re in the water. Soon the anchor will fall in Adria­buk­ta.

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