Tue
14 Aug
2018

Spitsbergen’s east coast has, for good (or bad) reasons, a repu­ta­ti­on of a cer­tain inac­ces­si­bi­li­ty, if you exclude Sabi­ne Land with Agardhbuk­ta, Dunérbuk­ta and Mohn­buk­ta, which can be rea­ched rela­tively easi­ly from Lon­gye­ar­by­en, espe­ci­al­ly in win­ter. But else­whe­re it is dif­fi­cult. Over land, it would requi­re a long and very deman­ding, expe­di­ti­on-style trip, and from the sea, this rug­ged, unchar­ted coast­li­ne is not exact­ly invi­ting eit­her.

Croll­breen

Some wind had come up in Agardhbuk­ta over night, no thought of any landing here now. Also fur­ther south, it did not real­ly look pro­mi­sing, initi­al­ly. It was not until we had almost rea­ched Ham­berg­buk­ta that we had ide­al con­di­ti­ons to approach one of the many gla­ciers in that area. As it tur­ned out, it had retrea­ted a bit and expo­sed a shore­li­ne com­po­sed of for­mer morai­ne that now forms seve­ral lagoons, whe­re a landing was easi­ly pos­si­ble, at least on a per­fect­ly calm day like this! Com­ple­te­ly young, fresh land, very vir­gin. I was won­de­ring if anyo­ne had ever set foot on this place befo­re, which not too many years ago was still gla­cier-cover­ed? Of cour­se I don’t real­ly know and one should be rather careful befo­re actual­ly clai­ming to be the first one any­whe­re in Spits­ber­gen. But at least the fact that the thought seems pos­si­ble and actual­ly quite reasonable is pret­ty ama­zing and rather attrac­ti­ve!

Croll­breen

The gla­cier must actual­ly have advan­ced a bit again quite recent­ly, as it has pushed up a steep litt­le morai­ne ridge, which had some pie­ces of young drift­wood built in. Some of us got their cram­pons out to ven­ture on a litt­le gla­cier hike, explo­ring crev­as­ses and wha­te­ver else one can find on a gla­cier. Some others went for a silent, litt­le beach walk, going to one lagoon and then to the other and enjoy­ing all the litt­le and big things that you can find in natu­re in a plce like this. Dis­co­ve­ring a new place, some­whe­re wild and remo­te, espe­ci­al­ly on the east coast of Spits­ber­gen, how good can life be? 🙂

Hedge­hog­fjel­let

Later, the sun deligh­ted us with ano­ther beau­tiful, very red near­by-sun­set.