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Home → July, 2018

Monthly Archives: July 2018 − News & Stories


Sjuøya­ne – 17 July 2018

The wea­ther is real­ly on our side! The first thing is a pret­ty rare landing on Wal­denøya, a small and remo­te island, in a mir­ror-like sea today. Defi­ni­te­ly a place that does not see a lot of visi­tors! Wal­ter Well­man was stran­ded here for a cou­ple of weeks with his expe­di­ti­on in 1894. We sit on the rocks and enjoy the sun and the undis­tur­bed view to the north pole.

Wal­denøya

Waldenøya

It is sun­ny and calm all the way up to Ros­søya, so we enjoy a Zodiac crui­se around this islet, Svalbard’s very nor­t­hern­most one. Fur­ther north, the­re is just water, liquid and solid, and the north pole. A rare sun­ny day in the­se lati­tu­des!

Ros­søya

Rossøya

An evening excur­si­on to Phippsøya does not yield wal­rus­ses, as we had been hoping for, but a polar bear. Which show­ed up on a pret­ty short noti­ce as we had just gone ashore. Alex, who was scou­ting the ter­rain, had the plea­su­re to dis­co­ver the bear, which had been slee­ping in a ter­rain depres­si­on, at a rather uncom­for­ta­ble distance, but it was not at all inte­res­ted in us and tur­ned its atten­ti­on to a rather rot­ten car­cass of a wal­rus. We went back into the boats and enjoy­ed the views in safe­ty for man and beast. A gre­at day on 80 degrees north!

Phippsøya

Phippsøya

Kongsfjord & Anti­gua under sail – 14 July 2018

A calm night at anchor, gre­at! Hiking over Blom­strand­hal­vøya is at least as gre­at. The coas­tal sce­n­ery is real­ly varied and inte­res­t­ing, espe­ci­al­ly if you know some of the hid­den places bey­ond Ny Lon­don.

Blom­strand

Blomstrand

Then we set cour­se to the north. The wind is a bit less than expec­ted, but enough to fill the can­vas, so we enjoy a silent crossing under sail and a sky the colours of which are chan­ging back and forth bet­ween grey, sil­ver and even blue in places.

Anti­gua

Antigua

Bock­fjord – 16 July 2018

It is gre­at to be out for a full, long day in Spitsbergen’s beau­tiful natu­re. And the warm springs far inland in Bock­fjord are fasci­na­ting. A gre­at desti­na­ti­on for a long hike! We spend hours get­ting the­re, hiking across tun­dra with ple­nty of flowers and a river plain that looks like kind of a wad­den sea. After an exten­ded rest with some food, we have soon rea­ched the fields with the sin­ter ter­races. Natu­re has inde­ed crea­ted some very impres­si­ve pie­ces of art here! All this comes with a stun­ning back­ground: a migh­ty wall of dark-red moun­ta­ins, some huge morai­nes and rug­ged moun­ta­ins.

Bock­fjord

Bockfjord

We enjoy the sce­n­ery, the wea­ther, the hike and life in gene­ral for a full day. It is a tim­e­l­ess place. We are back on board after 9 hours.

Bock­fjord

Bockfjord

Of cour­se the­re was also the opti­on for walks within a „nor­mal“ sca­le. The­re are also warm springs clo­se to the shore, and ano­ther walk went to a near­by gla­cier.

The wea­ther fore­cast is pro­mi­sing for the far north, so we set cour­se nor­the­ast in the evening.

A week on Anti­gua and taking off again with SVA Anti­gua – 12 July 2018

Time is just fly­ing in the sum­mer arc­tic. Not­hing too ama­zing going on in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Some­bo­dy mana­ged to park a car in a pond next to the road in Advent­da­len. One is tempt­ed to ask: why? I don’t know. Nobo­dy was hurt, at least. Some tou­rists thought that huts in the wil­der­ness are prin­ci­pal­ly open for ever­y­bo­dy. This is not the case. It took the poli­ce to get this mes­sa­ge across in this given case. It also took the poli­ce to con­vin­ce two fema­le tou­rists that you have to lea­ve the boat when the trip was over even if it did not meet your expec­ta­ti­on. Peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en don’t know if they should laugh or cry some­ti­mes. In yet ano­ther case, the poli­ce found ver­te­bra of mari­ne mammals in some tourist’s lug­ga­ge at the air­port. Not good. One day, when MSC Merag­li­vi­via was in the har­bour, the num­ber of peo­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en tri­pled.

Make sure you don’t end up on the wrong ship!

Make sure you don’t end up on the wrong ship!

Soon we will take off with SV Anti­gua. Time to check a huge pile of equip­ment, sort stuff, repair some items, replace other ones. So time is fly­ing as usu­al, and sud­den­ly Anti­gua is in the har­bour. An immense pile of equip­ment needs to be car­ri­ed on board and then it is alre­a­dy time for take-off. Wel­co­me on board and here we go! We are steam­ing against a bree­ze out of Isfjord and then turn into For­lands­und. Spits­ber­gen, here we come!

Wood­fjord – 15 July 2018

Gråhu­ken! We are not far from this famous cape as we wake up. A light bree­ze is blo­wing from the nor­thwest, but not too much, it is not a pro­blem to land and we are hap­py to pay a visit to the famous hut whe­re Chris­tia­ne Rit­ter win­tered in 1934-35 (she immor­ta­li­zed her adven­ture in the book „A woman in the polar night“). I have got a very spe­cial reason to be hap­py to get to this hut now, and today’s visit is inde­ed humbling and tou­ch­ing. More about that later.

Gråhu­ken

Gråhuken

In a later stage of today’s landing at Gråhu­ken, a polar bear turns up. It is a safe distance, and he (or she) turns around and moves away as soon as he (or she) gets awa­re of us. So do we.

Andoya­ne

Andoyane

An excur­si­on to one of the small islands in Lief­defjord turns out to be a visit to an arc­tic para­di­se. Colours, struc­tures, birds. Ple­nty of them.

Kongsfjord & Anti­gua unter Segeln – 14. Juli 2018

Eine ruhi­ge Nacht vor Anker, herr­lich! Min­des­tens so herr­lich war die Tour auf der Blom­strand­hal­vøya. Die Küs­ten­land­schaft ist sehr abwechs­lungs­reich, vor allem, wenn man ein paar bestimm­te Ecken kennt. Es gibt nicht nur Ny Lon­don, son­dern noch so ein paar rich­tig schö­ne, ver­steck­te Stel­len.

Blom­strand

Blomstrand

Dann set­zen wir Kurs Nord. Der Wind pus­tet zwar nicht ganz so fröh­lich wie erwar­tet, aber immer noch fröh­lich genug, um die Tücher zu fül­len, und so genie­ßen wir die Stil­le unter Segeln und einem Him­mel, des­sen Far­ben zwi­schen Grau, Sil­ber und punk­tu­el­lem Blau oszil­lie­ren.

Anti­gua

Antigua

Kongsfjord & Kross­fjord – 13 July 2018

Our first day out and away from Lon­gye­ar­by­en! Our first stop is Ny-Åle­sund in Kongsfjord, a gra­du­al tran­si­ti­on from civi­li­sa­ti­on to wil­der­ness. The vil­la­ge is calm today, goo­se fami­lies are fee­ding on the tun­dra bet­ween the hou­ses. While we walk around, Alex gives a talk about the past and pre­sence of Ny-Åle­sund, I give a talk about Roald Amund­sen and all the north pole expe­di­ti­ons through the cen­tu­ries and as we hap­pen to meet Mar­ten Loo­nen, lea­der of the Dutch Arc­tic Sta­ti­on, we even get the latest news about Bar­na­cle geese, Com­mon eider ducks and their rather unre­la­xed rela­ti­onship to polar bears that look for food on the bree­ding islands of the­se birds in Kongsfjord.

Camp Zoë

Camp Zoë

We sail up Kross­fjord in the after­noon, land at Camp Zoë, an old Rudi-/Mans­field-hut and do various walks and hikes in the tun­dra and up the hills. The sur­roun­ding moun­ta­ins are very impres­si­ve. We share the tun­dra with reinde­er, ptar­mi­gan and a lonely polar fox and enjoy the view of some white hor­ses on the blue water of Kross­fjord.

Tinay­re­breen

Tinayrebreen

An evening visit to Tinay­re­breen is the icing on the cake on this day, a Fri­day the 13th. It is Anke’s and Chris­tia­ne Ritter’s bir­th­day today. Hap­py bir­th­day!

Lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en: road open again for pede­stri­ans and bicy­clists

Way 300 in Lon­gye­ar­by­en was clo­sed for all traf­fic after a lands­li­de clo­se to the ceme­ta­ry. This road con­nects Skjæringa (the part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en whe­re church, Sys­sel­man­nen etc. are loca­ted) and Huset.

The Sys­sel­man­nen has now ope­ned Way 300 again for pede­stri­ans and bicy­clists. Moto­ri­sed traf­fic is not per­mit­ted. This is valid until fur­ther noti­ce from the Sys­sel­man­nen.

landslide Longyearbyen cemetery

Lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en near the ceme­tery: now way 300 is open again for non-moto­ri­sed traf­fic. Image © Alex­an­der Lembke.

Hur­tig­ru­ten bans dis­posable pla­s­tic

On July 2, the tra­di­tio­nal ship­ping com­pa­ny Hur­tig­ru­ten cele­bra­tes its 125th bir­th­day and at the same time gives a pre­sent to the envi­ron­ment: From today on Hur­tig­ru­ten wants to banish all dis­posable pla­s­tic from its ships. No pla­s­tic straws, no stir­rers in pla­s­tic cof­fee cups, no pla­s­tic lids and not a sin­gle pla­s­tic bag should then be found on the ships.

This is only logi­cal: ship tra­vel­lers wit­ness the pol­lu­ti­on of the oce­ans with pla­s­tic was­te every day. Most of the pla­s­tic in the oce­ans comes from fishing, but pla­s­tic bot­t­les, pla­s­tic bags or other ever­y­day pla­s­tic artic­les also end up on Norway’s bea­ches by the ton and too often end up in the sto­machs of sea­birds, fish and wha­les.

Plastic waste in Mushamna/ Spitsbergen

Pla­s­tic was­te in Mushamna/ Spits­ber­gen

The ban on dis­posable pla­s­tic artic­les will be effec­ti­ve across the enti­re Hur­tig­ru­ten fleet, i.e. both on the legen­da­ry pos­tal ship rou­te from Ber­gen to Kir­kenes, as well as on crui­se ships in polar waters and in all land-based faci­li­ties and also on Spits­ber­gen.

Hurtigruten’s ambi­tious long-term goal is even to beco­me the first pla­s­tic-free ship­ping com­pa­ny in the world. Even if the­re is cer­tain­ly still much room for impro­ve­ment in the crui­se ship indus­try in terms of pol­lu­ti­on and CO2 emis­si­ons, the ban on dis­posable pla­s­tic is a wel­co­me step in the right direc­tion.

Soon free from diposable plastic: Hurtigruten museumsship in Stokmarksnes

Soon free from diposable pla­s­tic: Hur­tig­ru­ten muse­ums­ship in Stok­marks­nes

Source: Hur­tig­ru­ten

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