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HomeArctic blog: Jan Mayen, Spitsbergen → Ros­søya – 05th August 2017

Ros­søya – 05th August 2017

The fog came down during the night, and the world was grey when we awo­ke today. Good that we went ashore last night, when the light was so beau­tiful! And now let’s see if we can still make it a bit fur­ther north.

We could. Who would have thought that we would reach Ros­søya a few hours later? Svalbard’s nor­t­hern­most island, or rather a rock or a sker­ry. From the distance, it has the shape of a turtle’s back. Just to the south of it, Ves­le Taveløya is towe­ring in the fog, like a threa­tening shadow. It is home to Svalbard’s nor­t­hern­most sea­bird colo­ny, inclu­ding a sur­pri­sin­gly lar­ge num­ber of puf­fins.

Ros­søya is not more than a sker­ry, but it is Svalbard’s nor­t­hern­most bit of land and as such cer­tain­ly a signi­fi­cant place. It is inte­res­t­ing to see Ros­søya, but it is much bet­ter to go ashore and have a clo­se look – that is some­thing dif­fe­rent. But not exact­ly easy. Ice and fog were a bit mar­gi­nal, but the visi­bi­li­ty was good enough and Hein­rich ancho­red the Arc­ti­ca II so beau­tiful­ly clo­se to the island that were were well shel­te­red from drif­ting ice floes.

Timon and I che­cked out two rou­tes befo­re we found a useable ascent. Ros­søya is actual­ly pret­ty steep. But after a while, ever­y­bo­dy who was hap­py to ven­ture on this one had made it to the top of the island. High up on Svalbard’s nor­t­hern­most bit of land! Yeah! The­re is some lone­so­me scur­vy grass, a lot of lichens and three cairns. The big­gest one is pre­suk­ma­b­ly the nor­t­hern­most one built by the Rus­si­an-Swe­dish Arc-de-Meri­di­an expe­di­ti­on. And a pair of arc­tic sku­as. Svalbard’s nor­t­hern­most bree­ding birds are arc­tic sku­as, who would have thought that?

Gal­lery – Ros­søya – 05th August 2017

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

Back on board, the fog was coming down again and the ice was drif­ting in. So we made our nor­t­hern­most turn at 80°50’N and stea­m­ed sou­thwards, to Nord­aus­t­land.

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last modification: 2017-08-07 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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