Mon
3 Jul
2017

To our own sur­pri­se, we sai­led around Barent­søya last night and ente­red Free­man­sund from the east. We spent a cold, but impres­si­ve mor­ning in a litt­le can­yon with a kit­ty­wa­ke colo­ny and a very rela­xed polar fox. Later, the wind blew us out of Free­man­sund, but we found a suf­fi­ci­ent­ly shel­te­red landing site on the wes­tern side of Barent­søya. A strong con­trast bet­ween the tun­dra that grew during thou­sands of years on basal­tic bed­rock and the moon­like morai­ne that was crea­ted by an advan­cing gla­cier exact­ly 100 years ago. Not enough time to crea­te a lot of vege­ta­ti­on bey­ond some flowers here and the­re.

Now we are under sail, with a plea­sant nor­the­as­ter­ly wind, hea­ding for the south cape and the west coast of Spits­ber­gen.

Gal­lery – Barent­søya – 03rd July 2017

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

Sun
2 Jul
2017

A see­mingly lar­ge part of Negri­b­reen, Spitsbergen’s lar­gest gla­cier, came towards us alre­a­dy in nor­t­hern Storfjord, in shape of an end­less, den­se stri­pe of ice­bergs. Many, many miles of ice­bergs, small and lar­ge ones, the who­le evening.

We spent sun­day mor­ning at Negri­b­reen, with Zodiacs and crui­sing with Anti­gua. A see­mingly end­less ice cliff, which is very acti­ve in parts. A sec­tion of the gla­cier front is so crev­as­sed that the gla­cier is actual­ly fal­len apart. The ice cliff is up to 70 met­res high! Mea­su­red with radar and sex­tant.

Gal­lery – Negri­b­reen-Heley­sund – 02nd July 2017

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

We con­ti­nue through Heley­sund, which is sur­pri­sin­gly open, hence no pro­blem. The cur­rent is impres­si­ve. Tog­e­ther with the stun­ning sce­n­ery, this makes for an ama­zing pas­sa­ge. It is so beau­tiful that we take it three times, through Heley­sund and both chan­nels of Orm­ho­let. So final­ly we end up on the eas­tern side and enjoy the open drift ice the­re in the evening.

Sat
1 Jul
2017

We make good use of the calm wea­ther and con­ti­nue our series of unli­kely landings with a walk on the east coast of Spits­ber­gen. We explo­re fasci­na­ting coas­tal land­scapes with bizar­re rock for­ma­ti­ons of stron­gly wea­the­red sand­stone. Dino­saurs were wal­king around here a good 100 mil­li­on years ago when the sand­stone was still soft sand. Their tracks are still well visi­ble in a cou­ple of places. Today, a polar fox fami­ly is play­ing here, enjoy­ing a mild arc­tic sum­mer day.

We con­ti­nue under sails nor­thwards in Storfjord, awai­ting the next days’ events with gre­at curiou­si­ty.

Gal­lery – Kval­vå­gen – 01st July 2017

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