Bell­sund, Isfjord – 17th-19th August, 2016

Wed
17 Aug
2016

17th-19th August, 2016 – We made lar­ge steps back towards Isfjord, but not wit­hout an exten­si­ve stop in Bell­sund. The­re, we star­ted with a rela­xed after­noon in the pan­ora­ma lounge of the Arc­ti­ca II, wat­ching how wind, low clouds and rain tur­ned the arc­tic into some­thing very grey. Later that day, it cle­ared up a bit and we went out for a walk in Recher­chefjord.

Things got bet­ter next day when we went for a lon­ger hike in Van Keu­len­fjord. After a few hundred met­res over fos­sil beach rid­ges we were gree­ted by a lar­ge male reinde­er. Having as much time as we would need or want is so good. Not having to keep an eye on the watch, just taking things as they come. It does not yet get dark here at night­ti­me … it took some time, but then the reinde­er had real­ly come clo­se to us, just being curious and fri­end­ly befo­re it went its way again.

We fol­lo­wed a small river with love­ly litt­le water­falls to that gla­cier cave that we hap­pen­ed to find in July. When you are lucky enough to find some­thing like that, then you have to make use of it! So we did, we went into the won­derful insi­de world of that gla­cier and enjoy­ed (you can do this now also online, with a 360 degree pan­o­r­amic view, just by cli­cking this link).

Final­ly it was time for the last open sea pas­sa­ge to Isfjord. It tur­ned out to be a bit of a pas­sa­ge due to a stiff bree­ze which was fil­ling the sail, so we went up north with excel­lent speed. The fri­ends of sai­ling cer­tain­ly had a gre­at evening! This was noti­ced also insi­de the ship, as some gusts made the ship lean over quite stron­gly befo­re we ente­red Grønfjord to find a shel­te­red ancho­ra­ge.

Gal­lery – Bell­sund, Isfjord – 17th-19th August, 2016

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

As the wind kept blo­wing in Isfjord the next day, we deci­ded to spend the last day of the trip in Grønfjord, which was com­pa­ra­tively shel­te­red. Anyo­ne who thought Grønfjord does not have nice natu­re and sce­n­ery was posi­tively dis­ap­poin­ted during a litt­le moun­tain hike respec­tively tun­dra walk. Final­ly, we had our first mee­ting with civi­li­sa­ti­on again in Barents­burg, befo­re we enjoy­ed Heinrich’s gre­at final din­ner and then made the last miles (of 1192 in total) back to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

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