Agardhbuk­ta – 13 August 2018

Mon
13 Aug
2018

Agardhbuk­ta on the east coast of Spits­ber­gen, a bit fur­ther south than Lon­gye­ar­by­en, was exact­ly in the right posi­ti­on for us to drop the anchor late night. The atmo­sphe­re was almost melan­cho­lic, the light approa­ching twi­light, the sun prac­ti­cing sun­sets again, if only behind the moun­ta­ins and not behind the hori­zon. But it is deep­ly red around mid­night and reminds us that the sum­mer is not long any­mo­re and dark­ness will be coming.

Agardhbuk­ta

Fond memo­ries are coming to mind here in Agardhbuk­ta. I have been here a cou­ple of times in the past, but always over land, never by boat. This bay is lar­ge­ly unchar­ted and does not have a good repu­ta­ti­on among­st sea­men, they used to call it Foul Bay in the past. My first time here was in 1999, 20 years ago! Unbe­lie­va­ble … a long time. That was a hiking tour with my fri­end Sven. We fol­lo­wed the clas­sic Con­way rou­te, start­ing in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and then fol­lo­wing the lar­ge inland val­leys for 4 long days. Later I was once again in the area on foot and then seve­ral times in the win­ter. That is much fas­ter and cer­tain­ly less exhaus­ting.

Agardhbuk­ta

For us this time, Agardhbuk­ta was main­ly an over­night ancho­ra­ge, even after making use of the depth fin­der as much as pos­si­ble and respon­si­ble, the coast was still pret­ty far away. But when tomor­row beca­me today, we sud­den­ly had a bir­th­day child on board and I thought a litt­le, quiet mid­night walk in the light of the very low mid­night sun might be a nice bir­th­day pre­sent. Which was inde­ed the case. A silent walk in beau­tiful sur­roun­dings, enjoy­ing the love­ly atmo­sphe­re and immer­sing in tre­asu­red memo­ries.

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