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Daily Archives: 28. September 2015 − News & Stories


The nor­thwest shows off, part II – 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015

As men­tio­ned, this was not all this day should bring. We were thin­king about a litt­le late after­noon landing, hoping to find a reason­ab­ly shel­te­red spot. We for­got about that quick­ly. The wind was one aspect. Admit­ted­ly, when I saw the wind blo­wing out of the bay and on to the shore of our envi­sa­ged landing site, I was alre­a­dy thin­king how to get out of it again. But that was not even neces­sa­ry. Sud­den­ly a polar bear was seen wal­king on the slo­pe not far from the place and that attrac­ted of cour­se ever­y­bo­dies atten­ti­on. It wal­ked along the coast, we inde­ed a lone­so­me wal­rus was lying, pas­sing it within a few met­res initi­al­ly wit­hout pay­ing atten­ti­on (is it real­ly pos­si­ble that he was not awa­re of it to begin with?). Then he reco­gni­zed it, made some steps towards it, pro­ba­b­ly hoping for a big meal, but the wal­rus demons­tra­ted with a quick move­ment of its migh­ty tusks that this might be a bad idea.

Pho­to Fla­t­hu­ken 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015

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The bear con­tin­ued and it was kind enough to do so in an area whe­re Joa­chim could maneou­vre the Anti­gua reason­ab­ly clo­se to the shore. It was cer­tain­ly clo­se enough for me, other­wi­se I would have had to remo­ve the tele con­ver­ter … the final high­light of the day was a stun­ning set of sun­set colours abo­ve an ama­zing sce­n­ery. So now the day is over. The second day of the trip, and it could not have been bet­ter!

Pho­to Raud­fjord 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015

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Now we are curious about tomor­row. Even more wind is expec­ted – we shall see.

The nor­thwest shows off, part I – 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015

As men­tio­ned befo­re, we were curious what the day would bring. Essen­ti­al­ly, we were pre­pared for a lot of wind. Which we got. And a lot more.

We had done the who­le stretch from sou­thern For­lands­und to the nor­thwest during the night under sails, nice­ly with the squa­res, calm and no strong lis­ting, very plea­sant.

Pho­to Vir­go­ham­na 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015 – 1/2

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Con­side­ring the strong sou­t­her­ly wind, Vir­go­ham­na was a natu­ral choice. Start­ing with tel­ling the rele­vant sto­ries the­re in some details, other­wi­se all you see the­re is a pile of rub­bish. With the sto­ries of the expe­di­ti­ons of Andrée and Well­man on your mind, it is sud­den­ly a Mek­ka of polar histo­ry. Also some har­bour seals were pre­sent.

Oppo­si­te in Smee­ren­burg, a group of wal­rus­ses were hau­led out on the beach, but the wind did not lea­ve a chan­ce for a landing. We had to make do with a reason­ab­ly clo­se pas­sa­ge by ship, which tur­ned out to be fine.

Pho­to Vir­go­ham­na 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015 – 2/2

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Then, we con­tin­ued into Fuglefjord. Grand pan­ora­ma, moun­ta­ins, gla­ciers. Spits­ber­gen has got its name for a reason, this beca­me clear again here.

Svitjod­breen has retrea­ted stron­gly in recent years. A rock that came out under the gla­cier some years ago is now an island. First mate Moritz was so kind to put me ashore for a moment to take a 360 degree pan­ora­ma pho­to – may­be I am the first one to have set foot on the island? You should never say or even think that you are the first one to have done some­thing in Spits­ber­gen. The­re has always been someone who was ear­lier out, it won’t be any dif­fe­rent here. But the pos­si­bi­li­ty as such is a nice thought.

Pho­to Fuglefjord 28th Sep­tem­ber 2015

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But that was not the point. Taking the 360 degree pan­ora­ma was the thing for me. To the delight of ever­y­bo­dy on board, as they had me for sca­le on the island in front of the gla­cier. Mean­while, Moritz was biding his time in the Zodiac by rea­ding my Spits­ber­gen book! That is hard to see in the pan­ora­ma, but I loved the idea. The result can soon be seen on this web­site. I am pret­ty sure it is the first 360 degree pan­ora­ma taken the­re. Not a bad thing. Click here to see the result.

The­re was more to come today. More about that later.

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