Wed
8 Aug
2018

After many hours of sai­ling time, we had rea­ched some of the nor­t­hern­most islands of Spits­ber­gen. Not the very nor­t­hern­most one, Sjuøya­ne are still fur­ther north, but the­re is inde­ed a Nord­kapp (North Cape) on this island!

Cherms­i­deoya

A litt­le evening hike takes us across the island, over per­fect­ly deve­lo­ped anci­ent beach ter­races, across hills of gla­cier-polished crystal­li­ne base­ment rocks, though a litt­le val­ley. A beau­tiful, remo­te, silent and very arc­tic place!

Cherms­i­deoya

But unbe­lie­va­ble how much pla­s­tic are washed up here on the­se bea­ches. Nobo­dy is ever get­ting here who could clean up. We have to go here with Anti­gua one day …

P.S. Five minu­tes after wri­ting the­se lines, we pul­led a huge fishing net out of the water. The­re was alre­a­dy a num­ber of dead birds ent­an­gled in it, Brünich’s and Black guil­l­emots. No idea whe­re we are going to store it until Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but the main thing is, it is not floa­ting around in the water any­mo­re!

Wed
8 Aug
2018

The wind out the­re at sea has final­ly cal­med down and it is time for us to get on. We want to sail up to the nor­t­hern side of Nord­aus­t­land and later around Spits­ber­gen, so the­re are still a lot of miles wai­ting for us. We take some of them today.

During the very first mile, we get a very plea­sant sur­pri­se, a litt­le sen­sa­ti­on even, as we see a Beard­ed seal lying on the beach! Have you ever seen a Beard­ed seal lying on the beach? No? Exact­ly. That does hard­ly ever hap­pen. Beard­ed seals lie in the water or on ice and not on the shore. But this one does not seem to know that.

Mus­ham­na

North of Wij­defjord, we meet a simi­lar­ly unu­su­al Min­ke wha­le. Nor­mal­ly, Min­ke wha­les do not care much about boats and peo­p­le and they do not show much more than a short glim­pse of their back and fin. But this one does not seem to know that (am I repe­ti­ti­ve?). This wha­le is real­ly curious, it is swim­ming towards us again and again and diving through under the boat, play­ing with us!

Wij­defjord

We plough our way to the nor­the­ast now, the­re is some gent­ly swell, cal­ming fur­ther down, and the hours and the miles are going by. Not long any­mo­re befo­re we can anchor and go for a walk, some­whe­re remo­te.