Wed
15 Aug
2018

We ancho­red in Isbuk­ta to get at least a few hours of sleep befo­re it would be time to round Sør­kapp (the south cape, Spitsbergen’s litt­le ver­si­on of Cape Hoorn). As the sun was shi­ning and con­di­ti­ons were ide­al in the mor­ning, of cour­se we took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to to out for a hike. A dead Belu­ga washed up on shore made us a bit sus­pi­cious – who knew what might be slee­ping behind a hill, con­side­ring to defend this titbit in for­ward gear if neces­sa­ry? But as it tur­ned out on careful inspec­tion, the­re had not yet been any­thing with big tee­th working on the car­cass, which had obvious­ly been the­re for a while alre­a­dy. A carefull check of the area inclu­ding aeri­al recon­nais­sance indi­ca­ted that the area was safe at the time being. You can never be 100 % cer­tain, but we could cer­tain­ly ven­ture out with good con­sci­ence. Isbuk­ta is stun­nin­gly beau­tiful with its lar­ge gla­ciers and many rug­ged moun­ta­ins, like a smal­ler ver­si­on of Horn­sund. And that under a blue, sun­ny sky from an ele­va­ted posi­ti­on!

Isbuk­ta

It was actual­ly quite win­dy up the­re, so we were a bit curious what roun­ding Sør­kapp would bring. The fore­cast was not bad at all, and we are at our sou­thern­most posi­ti­on now at the time of wri­ting, get­ting up to the west coast of Spits­ber­gen soon. So far it is real­ly quite ok.

Isbuk­ta