Sun
31 May
2015

It is late in the evening, the sun is shi­ning on coast and moun­ta­ins south of Bell­sund – not a good time to spend ages with the com­pu­ter, wri­ting a lot of text. I rather spend the time wat­ching the sce­n­ery and loo­king for a poten­ti­al polar bear some­whe­re on shore.

A lot of ice blo­cking Horn­sund today, unex­pec­ted­ly – but beau­tiful. And hundreds – no: thou­sands! – of Harp seals ☺ an ear­ly sea­son spe­cial­ty.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Sat
30 May
2015

The fur­ther we came north, the bet­ter the wea­ther. The stiff bree­ze eased out until the water sur­face beca­me oily, just moved by the gent­le swell, shi­ning in the evening sun. Best con­di­ti­ons to find some wha­les!

We were not the only ones in the area loo­king for wha­les, but litt­le did we know that the inten­ti­ons of the other boat that came into sight were far less peaceful. The see­mingly inno­cent boat Rei­ne­bruen from Svol­vær (Lofo­ten, Nor­way) tur­ned out to be a wha­le cat­cher, with a crow’s nest and a har­poon gun on the bow, and while we were wat­ching a young Hump­back wha­le, we heard the first shot being fired in the distance. Seve­ral more shots fol­lo­wed over the next cou­ple of minu­tes, and we saw a smal­ler wha­le splas­hing under the bow of the wha­ler. It fought the pain of the steel har­poon in its bel­ly for 5-6 minu­tes until it died.

It is not a secret that Nor­way issues well bey­ond 1000 licen­ses for Min­ke wha­les to its wha­ling fleet every year, and some­ti­mes we see wha­ling ships in Nor­we­gi­an ports inclu­ding Lon­gye­ar­by­en. But see­ing a wha­ler in dead­ly action is some­thing dif­fe­rent. I had never seen that befo­re and I did not have an idea of the impres­si­on it would make on me to see how a wha­le is shot, dies and is pul­led up on deck.

The crew of the Rei­ne­buen tur­ned the ship seve­ral times quick­ly, obvious­ly try­ing to move the stron­gly blee­ding wha­le out of our sight. They know what the world things about this.

Final­ly they went their way and we went ours. I had a bad fee­ling in my sto­mach and weak kne­es, as if I had just beco­me wit­ness to a mur­der. Well, this was pret­ty much the case, in a wider sen­se.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Soon, two more Hump­back wha­les appeared under the mid­night sun, hap­py and ali­ve, not kno­wing that a slight­ly remo­ter rela­ti­ve had just died in a very bloo­dy and pain­ful way. Spi­rits on board were rising noti­ce­ab­ly. Admit­ted­ly, I was not yet up for it. The emo­tio­nal chan­ge from slaugh­ter to obser­va­ti­on of almost the same won­derful ani­mal was just a bit too fast for me, so I wat­ched it slight­ly mecha­ni­cal­ly, took my pho­tos and was then hap­py to finish the day.

Sat
30 May
2015

29th/30th May 2015 – The­re is not­hing much to say about the crossing. Wind and waves made it an expe­ri­ence of limi­t­ed plea­su­re, and pre­sence during meals was visi­bly redu­ced. Well, it was not dra­ma­tic, but not real­ly popu­lar eit­her. No sightin­gs of wha­les, only small groups of dol­phins every now and then. The bet­ter that we made good speed, so we rea­ched Bear Island alre­a­dy mid-day of the 29th. We kept on the sou­the­as­tern side, as this side offe­red the best shel­ter available from wind and waves, and soon we had found a sui­ta­ble landing site.

From the distance, Bear Island may seem a grey, emp­ty rock in the oce­an, but a clo­ser look reve­als all the tre­asu­res of natu­re you can ima­gi­ne of a remo­te, small island in the Arc­tic. An impres­si­ve coas­tal land­scape with bird cliffs, various geo­mor­pho­lo­gi­cal phe­no­me­na inclu­ding frost-pat­ter­ned ground and karst springs and so on. The fee­ling of remo­ten­ess and expo­sure is among­st the best parts of the Bear Island expe­ri­ence, espe­ci­al­ly in quiet moments when all you hear is the wind. We spend a rather long after­noon on the island, roa­ming around from the river mouth in Ærfu­gl­vi­ka to the sea­bird colo­ny at Kapp Ruth, pas­sing some small, most­ly still fro­zen lakes in flat tun­dra towards the river Jor­d­bruel­va, which we fol­lo­wed bet­ween steep snow-cover­ed river banks, until we retur­ned to Kapp Maria with its impres­si­ve rock cave Kvalk­jef­ten (wha­le jaw) and a huge hole in the rocky ground, through which you see the surf 15 m lower down.

A calm night at anchor in the shel­ter of the island was cer­tain­ly among­st the high­lights of the day for many.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Next mor­ning, we crui­sed around the sou­thern end of Bear Island, whe­re natu­re has crea­ted some of the most impres­si­ve cliffs in the north Atlan­tic. The seas and winds being too high for any Zodiac ope­ra­ti­ons, we enjoy­ed the views from the ship, in the pre­sence of count­less Nor­t­hern ful­mars, befo­re we con­tin­ued nor­thwards, cour­se for Spits­ber­gen.

Tue
26 May
2015

Trom­sø, Paris of the north, tra­di­tio­nal gate­way to the Arc­tic and our step­ping stone towards Bear Island and Spits­ber­gen, pres­ents its­elf in the best of wea­ther. Visits to the muse­ums dedi­ca­ted to the Arc­tic, excur­si­ons to the view­point on Fløya and some time to relax in zivi­li­sa­ti­on, befo­re we con­ti­nue towards the Barents Sea.

Mon
25 May
2015

Two years ago, we „dis­co­ver­ed“ Tin­den, an old tra­ding post on the outer coast of the Ves­terå­len islands, beau­tiful­ly situa­ted in a bay under a steep moun­tain, hid­den behind some small islands. We did not have any idea back then what to expect, we had just been told that it should be a nice place. Which was quite an under­state­ment. The old tra­ding post was aban­do­ned long time ago, but has been beau­tiful­ly revi­ved as a muse­um, in a simi­lar way as Port Lock­roy in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca. Tin­den is a small, but love­ly ensem­ble of white woo­den hou­ses, shel­ves squeezed with ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry items, the­re is even a flower gar­den with old spe­ci­es which they had to re-gather on churchyards. The mana­ger of the place, Kjell, is a gre­at cha­rac­ter and a very valuable part of the expe­ri­ence.

So this is what we could enjoy today, and to make things even bet­ter, the sun was shi­ning on the who­le set­ting, so a litt­le walk up the steep slo­pe behind the buil­dings was defi­ni­te­ly a good thing to do.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Hard to ima­gi­ne that the­re had been a storm here some months ago, strong enough to des­troy seve­ral hou­ses here that had sur­vi­ved count­less storms during many deca­des. An irre­pla­ca­ble loss, as nobo­dy can tax or even replace all the his­to­ri­cal arte­facts lost. And I don’t real­ly want to know how strong the winds were that flat­ten­ed tho­se stur­dy buil­dings. How nice is today’s light bree­ze.

By the way, some 360 degree impres­si­ons from Tin­den are alre­a­dy available. I should make an updated ver­si­on now, as I got a sun­ny adden­dum today.

Sun
24 May
2015

We watch the sou­thern Ves­terå­len islands pas­sing by while we are making miles to the north. Scenic coast­li­nes and moun­ta­ins, sea eagles and even orcas make the after­noon a very plea­sant and inte­res­t­ing expe­ri­ence.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Sun
24 May
2015

We are cer­tain­ly not the first tou­rists in this area. The Ger­man emper­or Wil­helm II. was here in 1889. If he had only spent more time tra­ve­ling and less with poli­tics, it might have saved the world a lot of trou­ble, who knows.

Despi­te all the trou­bles that he had with his job – his own fault! – he mana­ged to tra­vel to Nor­way quite a lot. And twice he made it to Diger­mu­len, a litt­le vil­la­ge – about 300 inha­bi­tants – at the sou­thern end of Raft­sund. That is the strait that sepa­ra­tes Aus­t­vå­gøya (Lofo­ten) from Hin­nøya (Ves­terå­len). The­re is a moun­tain next to Diger­mu­len that is cal­led Diger­kol­len. It is not so ter­ri­bly diger (big), actual­ly not at all with an alti­tu­de of 384 m, that is some­thing we can do. And nobo­dy has to car­ry up pla­tes of gra­ni­te with our names incar­ved after us. We are more than hap­py with our signa­tures in the Gip­fel­buch (what is that in Eng­lish?).

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The way up, across stones, mud and snow, takes about 1 ½ hours, with an inte­res­t­ing mix­tu­re of rain, sun, snow and sun again. Lucki­ly, it remains sun­ny as we reach the top, so we can enjoy sple­ndid views of Raft­sund, Hin­nøya, Aus­t­vå­gøya and and a num­ber of smal­ler islands. An impe­ri­al view, inde­ed!

Sat
23 May
2015

It is part of the fun to dis­co­ver new places. If you haven’t been to a place, then it may be a good reason to go the­re one day. After an inte­res­t­ing after­noon – some­ti­mes the wind needs about a minu­te up here to turn 180 degrees, which is inte­res­t­ing for a ship under sail – we came to Heimøya. A litt­le island, sepa­ra­ted from its litt­le neigh­bou­ring island by a litt­le chan­nel. The Nor­we­gi­ans have obvious­ly dis­co­ver­ed Heimøya as a good place to build weekend hou­ses, so the­re is quite a few of them the­re. Is that the reason for the name, or was it the other way around?

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We still have a real sun­set and, accor­din­gly, a real evening with real evening light.

Sat
23 May
2015

Nusfjord is the first port of call for us, so the rest of the night is calm, apart from the slight­ly dis­har­mo­nic music of sin­ging fen­ders. A very plea­sant sur­pri­se for most on board to wake up on the­se love­ly sur­roun­dings. Nusfjord is kind of a muse­um vil­la­ge, a time cap­su­le that moves the visi­tor back to the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, as you are wal­king into the old „Land­han­del“ or around the litt­le natu­ral har­bour with its tra­di­tio­nal ror­buer, simp­le woo­den buil­dings whe­re fishery workers were accom­mo­da­ted peri­odi­cal­ly in the old days. Kit­ti­wa­key are making the same noi­se today as they did 100 years ago. And the rain show­ers make you as wet as they did 100 years ago, Gore Tex or not.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

As a final high­light, Cap­tain Joa­chim is navi­ga­ting Anti­gua around the litt­le island of Bratt­hol­men, through a scenic natu­ral chan­nel. A minia­tu­re ver­si­on of Troll­fjord, kind of a warm-up exer­cise. Per­fect­ly enjoy­ed from the best place, up on the mast ☺

Fri
22 May
2015

Yee­ha – today I am start­ing my nor­t­hern sai­ling sea­son! The 3 mast bar­ken­ti­ne Anti­gua is wai­ting in the har­bour of Bodø in north Nor­way. She has taken 2 weeks to sail up here from Ham­burg. I am cove­ring the same distance a bit hig­her and fas­ter.

A day later, the inter­na­tio­nal group comes on board. Some lan­guage mathe­ma­tics: Ger­man + Dutch = Eng­lish.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

A gent­le sou­thwes­ter­ly bree­ze is blo­wing, while we are lea­ving the har­bour of Bodø, steam­ing into Ves­t­fjord. 50 nau­ti­cal miles of open water bet­ween here and Rei­ne on Mos­ken­esøya, one of the sou­thern Lofo­ten islands. Soon, the sails are up. The sea is mode­ra­te, but enough for some on the first evening. Others enjoy sai­ling into the evening sun, while the famous Lofo­ten wall („Lofot­veg­gen“) is slow­ly appearing out of a cloud.