Mon
31 Oct
2016

I just have to add 2 pho­tos from yes­ter­day. Later in the evening, the nor­t­hern light real­ly came out nice­ly. The situa­ti­on was far from ide­al for pho­to­gra­phy, as the ship was moving on the outer side of Sen­ja, whe­re the­re will always be some swell. Mode­ra­te last night, but any move­ment is dead­ly for qua­li­ty shots of nor­t­hern lights. So I was hap­py to have a good prime len­se (24 mm f1.4) and a full frame came­ra, pul­ling the ISO value up to a rather extre­me 12800. Well, I guess that’s what you have such a came­ra for, isn’t it? So you can get some­thing even with a shut­ter speed of 1/10 of a second, the slo­west that this kind of move­ment could tole­ra­te, more or less.

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

So this is what I got. As men­tio­ned, no qua­li­ty pix, but … nice, or not 🙂

Sun
30 Oct
2016

Some­ti­mes you can fit a trip into a day. Peo­p­le often say at the end of a good day that they might go home tomor­row. That is obvious­ly just a joke and not meant serious­ly.

Today, howe­ver, you might say that and actual­ly almost even mean it (almost). It was just 24 hours ago that ever­y­bo­dy came on board in Trom­sø, we left from the­re just 12 hours ago. Sin­ce then, we spent a good part of the day wat­ching orcas. Not just a few, not just 2 or 3 dozens, but in lar­ge num­bers. The­re may easi­ly have been 200 of them, they were all over the place.

And we were at the right place at the right time 

8 a.m. sun­ri­se, 3 p.m. sun­set. And we alre­a­dy had our first nor­t­hern lights in the after­noon. Not too strong, hard to pho­to­graph as the ship was moving, but beau­tiful to see.

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

Now it feels as mid­night. But it is just about din­ner­ti­me …

It almost does not mat­ter any­mo­re what the next days will bring: in the end, it will have been a good trip.

Fri
28 Oct
2016

After the sum­mer and autumn trips in Spits­ber­gen, it was time to spend some weeks fur­ther south. Not­hing of exci­te­ment con­cer­ning this blog, arc­tic acti­vi­ties were limi­t­ed to post-pro­ces­sing of recent trips and pre­pa­ra­ti­on of upco­ming ones, down to adre­na­lin-kicking neces­si­ties like book kee­ping and the like. Also working on new polar books was on the agen­da, but how exci­ting is it to fol­low how that is being done?

Then it was time to move nor­thwards again. Not direct­ly. Logi­sti­cal­ly skillful­ly incor­po­ra­ted into the jour­ney north, I had and took the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet mas­ter gui­ta­rist Jeff Beck in south Ger­ma­ny – in a sports hall! Thanks to the 25th anni­ver­sa­ry of a local rock music club and their spon­sors, I guess Beck and his band would other­wi­se hard­ly have got lost in Win­ter­bach, half an hour by local train from Stutt­gart into the dark­ness. And well, what can I say, mas­ter Beck was in bril­li­ant shape and mood, his gui­tar, sound and play­ing, sharp as a kni­fe and of dead­ly pre­cis­i­on. Tasty bits and pie­ces from almost half a cen­tu­ry of musi­cal histo­ry. A guitarist’s gui­ta­rist, play­ing in a league on his own with a sound and style total­ly uni­que and imme­dia­te­ly reco­g­nisable after just a few notes. Gui­tar play­ing from outer space. At an age of 72 years. Ama­zing!

The train ride next ear­ly mor­ning to Frank­furt air­port was also quite ama­zing. It should have taken an hour, it took three. That included lea­ving a total­ly over­c­row­ded train which did not con­ti­nue the jour­ney for safe­ty reasons. Secu­ri­ty was alre­a­dy on stand-by to part­ly evacua­te the next one which was equal­ly over­c­row­ded. While being men­tal­ly alre­a­dy pre­pared for a lon­gish and very expen­si­ve taxi ride to the air­port, it tur­ned out that the third and, as far as I was con­cer­ned, last con­nec­tion had enough space to stand in a cor­ner for half an hour to Frank­furt. Well … I got the flight, that’s what counts.

Life is so much more rela­xed in the far north. Good to get back to Anti­gua, good to see the peo­p­le here, the crew, loo­king for­ward to the season’s final trip which is start­ing today (Sun­day). We are hoping for wha­les and nor­t­hern lights the next days. Fin­gers crossed!