Rijp­dalen – 10 August 2018

Fri
10 Aug
2018

It is so good to spend a calm night at anchor in a hid­den bay at the end of the world, deep in Rijpfjord on the north side of Nord­aus­t­land! Good pro­s­pects for tomor­row, as some of us were plan­ning a pret­ty serious hike in Rijp­dalen.

Him­mel­buk­ta

As tomor­row had beco­me today, the clouds whe­re, howe­ver, han­ging rather low, unfort­u­na­te­ly. Hiking for hours on end in fog in unknown ter­rain and polar bear coun­try was cle­ar­ly not an opti­on, so we went on a good and still pret­ty solid hike of 5 hours in lower Rijp­dalen. What a beau­tiful coun­try at the end of the world! Very wide-open, sur­pri­sin­gly rich tun­dra, a wild river … the huge ice caps were loo­ming behind the clouds, but visi­ble here and the­re, Aus­t­fon­na in the east and Ves­t­fon­na in the west.

Nor­dens­ki­old­buk­ta

We found some­thing that may have been a gra­ve of unknown ori­gin and the site whe­re Hen­ry Rudi, who later beca­me famous as the „polar bear king“, win­tered in the 1930s. They remo­ved the hut the fol­lo­wing year and took the mate­ri­als down to Halv­må­neøya, so not­hing is left of it on site.

The days are fly­ing by and we have to move west again, so now we are steam­ing towards Hin­lo­pen Strait, not wit­hout say­ing hel­lo again to yesterday’s Blue wha­les.

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