Mon
24 Sep
2018

Yet ano­ther beau­tiful, sun­ny day! We just keep enjoy­ing. More about „calm“ later.

Some of us have a bit of a slow start into the day, but after break­fast we take off to explo­re Barents­burg. With some minor adjus­t­ments of the rou­te, we even mana­ge to spend almost the who­le mor­ning in suns­hi­ne! A very inte­res­t­ing visit and a strong visu­al con­trast to our arc­tic expe­ri­en­ces so far.

Michel­le van Dijk in Barents­burg, sha­ring her know­ledge of the Dutch histo­ry of the place.

Love­ly day in Barents­burg.

Lenin some 12 hours later and in dif­fe­rent light (compa­re to yesterday’s blog).

Later we set cour­se across Isfjord to say good­bye and fare­well to Spitsbergen’s beau­tiful natu­re in Ymer­buk­ta, but things are chan­ging and so are our plans. The wind is picking up, the next days are sup­po­sed to bring pret­ty stor­my wea­ther and we get a first tas­te of it today. Not­hing serious so far, but the­re is a risk that we may not be able to go along­side in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in the evening if we get the­re too late so we chan­ge cour­se or Advent­fjor­den. Well, we have enjoy­ed so much of Spitsbergen’s beau­ty in the last cou­ple of days that we can real­ly relax and look for­ward to civi­li­sa­ti­on.

Con­tin­ued later – inde­ed, the wind had picked up con­sider­a­b­ly as we sai­led into Advent­fjord and going along­side was a chall­enge. We were all hap­py once the last mile was real­ly done!

Sai­ling into a dust storm while ente­ring Advent­fjord.

Dust storm over Advent­fjord.

A stun­nin­gly beau­tiful voya­ge is coming to an end – unfor­gettable! Big thanks to ever­y­bo­dy here, Cap­tain Kevin and his crew on board SV Anti­gua, my col­le­agues Michel­le van Dijk and Alex­an­der Lembke and of cour­se all our fel­low polar tra­vel­lers who con­tri­bu­ted to the good expe­ri­ence and spi­rits on board and on the tun­dra!

Crew of SV Anti­gua in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Mon
24 Sep
2018

Yet ano­ther beau­tiful, calm, sun­ny day! One can only won­der and enjoy.

The litt­le island of Her­man­senøya is lying in the midd­le of For­lands­und. Whe­re­ver the eye wan­ders the­re is beau­ty, both far away, such as the moun­ta­ins and gla­ciers of Spits­ber­gen and Prins Karls For­land, and clo­ser, from the rug­ged coas­tal rocks to the litt­le mira­cles that frost and ice crea­te in the tun­dra.

Icy scenic details on Her­man­senøya (I).

Klei­ne, fei­ne Din­ge im Eis auf der Her­man­senøya (II).

Icy scenic details on Her­man­senøya (III).

More icy scenic details on Her­man­senøya: Flech­ten.

Even more scenic details on Her­man­senøya: last flowers of the Tuf­ted saxif­ra­ge in snow and ice.

In the after­noon we con­tin­ued sou­thwards along the west coast of Spits­ber­gen. One of the most beau­tiful bits of land­scape if you ask me! It’s not so much the post­card beau­ty, like ice­bergs and gla­ciers, that many asso­cia­te with the Arc­tic, it’s more subt­le. A wide plain with a very rocky, immense­ly beau­tiful coast­li­ne and very rich tun­dra with ple­nty of reinde­er. What a beau­tiful part of the pla­net! And we are lucky to be able to spend some time here, this area is pret­ty expo­sed.

Hid­den bay in sou­thern For­lands­und.

Wide tun­dra plain on Spitsbergen’s west coast (Daud­mannsøy­ra).

Coas­tal land­scape in sou­thern For­lands­und.

Reinde­er eating ice.

SV Anti­gua near the rocky coast in For­lands­und.

We went along­side in Barents­burg later in the evening. Rumours went later that it was a bit of a late night for some.

Lenin in evening light in Barents­burg. It is nice that dark nights are coming back now!

Spitsbergen’s coo­le­st bar: the second-nor­t­hern­most bre­wery in the world in Barents­burg.