Wed
29 Jul
2015

Yes, good wea­ther, that’s what we want and what we need. The wind had lar­ge­ly cal­med down and even the sun was coming out at times. So on we went, with sand­wi­ches and ther­mos bot­t­les, into the tun­dra and up the moun­ta­ins. Gre­at views of the land­scape near and far, bizar­re shapes of wea­the­ring snow on the banks of litt­le rivers, ptar­mi­gans and reinde­er, flowers and erra­tic bould­ers, lar­ge val­leys with gla­ciers and morai­nes. Six hours exact­ly as we want them.

Pho­to Faks­eva­gen – 29th Juli 2015 – 1/2

Hin­lo­pen Strait its­elf, howe­ver, is less hos­pi­ta­ble, but bet­ter than yes­ter­day, less wind. And the lively acti­vi­ty of hundred thou­sands of Brünich’s guil­l­emots at Alkef­jel­let is always extre­me­ly impres­si­ve, also when the sky is grey.

Pho­to Faks­eva­gen – 29th Juli 2015 – 2/2

Now we are curious about the near future. We have good hopes for less wind, wal­rus­ses, a visit to the gre­at ice cap of Nord­aus­t­land and drift ice. Enough to be inte­res­t­ing, but not too much, so we may suc­cessful­ly sail into Storfjord, the most important step to turn this trip into a cir­cum­na­vi­ga­ti­on of the main island of Spits­ber­gen.

Pho­to Alkef­jel­let – 29th Juli 2015