Thu
18 Jun
2015

We left Isaf­jör­dur on Mon­day evening, and today it is … let me think … Thurs­day. Had the wind been a bit more fri­end­ly, we should see Jan May­en now, but as it was, we still have about 150 nau­ti­cal miles bet­ween us and the island. The wind was not too strong (that was the good news), but exact­ly against us (that was the bad news). That did not make us fas­ter or life on board more com­for­ta­ble.

So 3 days will soon have gone. On the first day, the fee­ling of latent sea­sick­ness was never far away, and I was hap­py that I had alre­a­dy got some warm-up exer­cise on SV Anti­gua some weeks ago. Others who did not enjoy this advan­ta­ge, have … – no, no fur­ther details.

The wind has cal­med down con­sider­a­b­ly last night, and our speed has increased. Jan May­en is get­ting clo­ser and sea sick­ness seems to be a mat­ter of the past for the moment. Break­fast is cer­tain­ly enjoy­ing increased popu­la­ri­ty today.

As nobo­dy can tell when peo­p­le are able and wil­ling to eat some­thing, the­re are no set times for meals here at sea. When­ever you feel hun­gry, you go and get some­thing. Bread and Müs­li are always available, and in the after­noon Sig­gi is pre­pa­ring some­thing hot, which in the last two days invol­ved pas­ta and red sau­ce, a hear­ty mee­ting of Ita­ly and Mexi­co, good stuff. But as ever­y­bo­dy comes (or not) when he or she feels like it, you don’t real­ly meet peo­p­le the­se days. Some lea­ve their bunks only when they real­ly can’t avo­id it. Shared acti­vi­ties around the table are not an opti­on, emer­gen­cy exits need to be available for almost ever­yo­ne at any time. You don’t want to play cards with a bucket on the table, serious­ly. So at the moment ever­y­bo­dy is living a life on his own, enjoy­ing or suf­fe­ring, rea­ding, lis­tening to some music or a con­ver­sa­ti­on here and the­re. Sail­or Franz (we know him from Arc­ti­ca II, last August) spends most of the time on the stee­ring wheel. Other than that, the who­le spec­trum is repre­sen­ted. From a young Ame­ri­can cou­ple who didn’t know that Jan May­en exis­ted until they met Sig­gi a cou­ple of years ago to a Ger­man who has a map of Jan May­en on the wall sin­ce he was 12. So for some a long-time dream will come true now.

Enough for now. Con­side­ring that not much has hap­pen­ed so far, I have actual­ly writ­ten a lot.

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

I won’t take the lap­top ashore on Jan May­en, so most likely the­re will be silence for a good week. We will see. Fin­gers crossed.

Sun
14 Jun
2015

10 short days later – warm­ing up under the sun of Sax­o­ny and get­ting rea­dy befo­re depar­tu­re today to Ice­land. Hard to belie­ve while I am sit­ting in tro­pi­cal suns­hi­ne even here in Reykja­vik that one of the poten­ti­al­ly toug­hest trips of the sea­son is just about to start. Tomor­row we will start in Isaf­jör­dur with Sigurður Jóns­son and his good polar-pro­of boat Auro­ra to Jan May­en. Three days at open sea, but the wea­ther fore­cast looks quite ok, and the sea should be reason­ab­ly calm.

I am high­ly curious what the next days will bring. I do cer­tain­ly have respect: the days on a small boat across a big, very open sea, the wild island Jan May­en and the many kilo­me­t­res that we will hike the­re … will we have the wea­ther to climb Bee­ren­berg? We will see. It will defi­ni­te­ly be exci­ting and beau­tiful in any case. I am loo­king for­ward to the migh­ty bea­ches cover­ed with immense amounts of drift­wood, bizar­re vol­ca­nic land­scapes, colourful mos­ses and lichens on black lava rocks …

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

I will pro­ba­b­ly not be able to send pho­tos to the blog from the trip befo­re I am back in Ice­land in 2 weeks, as the satel­li­te-based mail soft­ware does not sup­port attach­ments at the time being. But that will come in late June. And on Jan May­en, I won’t spend a lot of time with the lap­top any­way!

Thu
4 Jun
2015

This final day show­ed that win­ter still had the land in Isfjord in its firm grip, more so than fur­ther south. In Bell­sund, we had enjoy­ed easy walks over snow-free tun­dra and even the views of some first, ear­ly flowers (Pur­ple saxif­ra­ge). Here in Isfjord, the land is lar­ge­ly under deep snow down to sea level. And whe­re the tun­dra is snow-free, the­re are most­ly birds sit­ting – good reasons to keep excur­si­ons short at the time being. Nevert­hel­ess, very plea­sant stays on the arc­tic tun­dra and good round views over outer Isfjord.

It was not exact­ly a com­ple­te sur­pri­se that the­re was still a lot of ice in the bays, so we had to make do with views of a con­sidera­ble distance of the gla­cier front in Bore­buk­ta. But who cared after ever­y­thing that the last days had given us?

After a final, short crossing of Isfjord, we went along­side in the port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en and thus finis­hed the trip. Well, not yet – the swell was quite unp­lea­sant, so soon we moved out again and drop­ped the anchor once more. Then it was time for a warm fare­well with ever­y­bo­dy.

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

To my gre­at plea­su­re, a lar­ge deli­very of books also finis­hed its trip on this day when it was moved onto dry arc­tic ground in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Always a gre­at and important event! I’d like to thank ever­y­bo­dy who has given a hand with the books on their way from nor­the­as­tern Ger­ma­ny to Lon­gye­ar­by­en!

Wed
3 Jun
2015

Today it was time to make fri­ends with some of Spitsbergen’s inha­bi­tants. We did so on Prins Karls For­land and in Barents­burg.

The For­lands­und was at home. Quite lazy, but one impres­si­ve wal­rus came slow­ly rol­ling out of the water, fee­ding the eyes and len­ses of hap­py tou­rists.

Barents­burg tur­ned out to be not just a strong visu­al con­trast, but also a very infor­ma­ti­ve les­son about Spits­ber­gen histo­ry and poli­tics. And a chan­ce to tas­te the local beer. To a good trip – na sda­rowje!

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

Tue
2 Jun
2015

The pho­tos may speak for them­sel­ves. We did not have so many impres­si­ons of the diver­si­ty of this high arc­tic land so far, so it was time to catch up with some landings. A gla­cier, a lagoon with ice floes dri­ven by tidal curr­ents, tun­dra, sun abo­ve the blue sea.

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

But it was a slow start into this part of the day, after the polar bear visit in the ear­ly mor­ning.

Tue
2 Jun
2015

Van Keu­len­fjord tur­ned out to be a tre­asu­re cham­ber of arc­tic impres­si­ons. Of cour­se, it was good to step out on solid ground again. Real arc­tic soil, per­ma­frost-based tun­dra. But what fol­lo­wed later will defi­ni­te­ly remain a tre­asu­red memo­ry well bey­ond this sum­mer.

Fur­ther in, the fjord was still fro­zen solid. Four polar beas were visi­ble in the distance, a mother with two cubs and a sin­gle bear, all res­t­ing at times and moving at others, even mee­ting occa­sio­nal­ly. All in a distance that redu­ced them to litt­le yel­low dots for us. Mean­while, a group of Belugas came into sight, with an excep­tio­nal high pro­por­ti­on of young ani­mals, distin­gu­is­ha­ble by their dark grey colour.

We had the good idea to moor the Anti­gua at the fast ice edge during the night. That is one of the beau­ties of tra­vel­ling with a sai­ling ship: you are not always in a rush. Some­ti­mes you have time, the most important thing during tra­vel­ling (and other­wi­se in life). We do not fol­low sche­du­les, we take oppor­tu­ni­ties. The wea­ther was fine, wild­life within view. So we did not save any cost or effort but went out to find a sui­ta­ble pie­ce of drift­wood, which was then put through a hole in the ice with gre­at enthu­si­asm by Cap­tain Joa­chim and some hel­ping hands. A rope bet­ween the drift­wood log and Anti­gua would keep the ship in posi­ti­on for some hours wit­hout wind. The self­ma­de port was rea­dy, and we could enjoy the evening.

The night was short. Around 4 a.m., the polar bear fami­ly deci­ded to visit this stran­ge ice­berg which had appeared at the ice edge. The two second year cubs, 1.5 years old, were as curious as polar bears can be. The wal­ked on the ice around the bow of the ship and stood up on their hind legs to get bet­ter views of us. They were biting into the ropes, which may have smel­led from many sail­ors’ hands which have hand­led them over years and many ports whe­re they have fixed Anti­gua to the pier.

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

No need to men­ti­on that this was an unfor­gettable expe­ri­ence ☺

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 ☺