Sat
11 Jun
2016

As unp­lea­sant as the wea­ther had been yes­ter­day after­noon near Mag­da­le­nefjord, the­re was only one thing to do: put the foot down and lea­ve the area, steam­ing south and towards new places, far away from the dark, low clouds. Nice sce­n­ery under a blue sky, that would be good now, for the last day of this voya­ge. A pre­sen­ta­ti­on, a film and Captain’s din­ner make the after­noon go past quick­ly.

So we awo­ke today deep in Isjord. It had work­ed well, the impres­si­ve moun­ta­ins around Bil­lefjor­den are enligh­ten­ed by bright suns­hi­ne. We take a walk under the fort­ress-like cliffs of mount Skan­sen, having a look at the remains of an old gypsym mine and at the remains of lagoons from the days when Spits­ber­gen was still part of a lar­ge land­mass near the equa­tor. A litt­le group of reinde­er is roa­ming the tun­dra clo­se to us. We enjoy the impres­si­ons and the sur­roun­dings in arc­tic silence.

Gal­lery Isfjord – 11th June 2016

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

Pyra­mi­den is also lar­ge­ly a silent place, but other­wi­se so com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent from the other places we had seen so far. A strong visu­al con­trast to ever­y­thing the arc­tic had given us so far, a last place that rounds our Spits­ber­gen expe­ri­ence off to make it as com­ple­te as can be.