Bell­sund – 25 July 2018

Wed
25 Jul
2018

The swell last night on the way up to Bell­sund had not exact­ly made the
night bet­ter, and most of us were quite hap­py to get into shel­te­red
waters again in Bell­sund in the very ear­ly mor­ning hours.

Tom­tod­den

We gave the day a rela­xed start and made a litt­le walk along the coast
in Recher­chefjord, whe­re a Rus­si­an expe­di­ti­on had built a sta­ti­on in
1764, almost a litt­le vil­la­ge of 16 hou­ses. None is stan­ding any­mo­re, of
cour­se. Rolf told the sto­ries of this adven­ture and others such as the
French Recher­che-Expe­di­ti­on, who­se bra­ve sci­en­tists clim­bed
Obser­va­to­rief­jel­let many times for their work, the crui­se ship Mon­te
Cer­van­tes which mana­ged to reach Recher­chefjord after being dama­ged by
ice in 1928 (she sank in ear­ly 1930 clo­se to Ushua­ia), the tou­ristic
hopes of Kon­sul Gjæ­ver, who had left a croo­ked hut here, and 8 Eng­lish
wha­lers who had been left here by acci­dent in 1630. They were found in
the fol­lo­wing year in good shape. Lots of sto­ries for such a litt­le
fjord! The oldest bits of histo­ry were actual­ly geo­lo­gi­cal traces of an
ice age more than 600 mil­li­on years ago, which have now come to the
sur­face again just to be pushed around again by a gla­cier!

Snat­cher­pyn­ten

Snat­cher­pyn­ten

In the after­noon, we drop­ped a litt­le group of bra­ve hikers off, who
ven­tu­red on a crossing from Van Mijenfjord to Van Keu­len­fjord. We hoped
to see them again tomor­row in good shape and set off to Akseløya to
explo­re this sple­ndid bit of sce­n­ery and geo­lo­gy as the last one of
today’s adven­tures.

Snat­cher­pyn­ten

Akseløya

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