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.

Thu
9 Aug
2018

Today and tomor­row we want to try to find out about some of Nordaustlandet’s secrets, which are hid­den deep in the huge fjords. Some of the­ses sur­pri­ses hap­pen just to be on our way. Sud­den­ly we have at least 2 Blue wha­le clo­se to the boat, pos­si­bly 3. Huge ani­mals! One is real­ly big, even to Blue wha­le stan­dards. Who said recent­ly that it was a bad wha­le year in Spitsbergen’s waters? Well, we can’t com­plain.

Nor­dens­ki­old­buk­ta

Later we ven­ture to explo­re Score­s­by­øya, in the midd­le of the wide-open Nor­dens­ki­öld­buk­ta. We don’t stay long, espe­ci­al­ly as we find out that we are not alo­ne on the island. The­re is some­thing lying behind a rock, and it is yel­lo­wish-white and it has fur and ears. Just slee­ping and far away, but we pre­fer to move away and lea­ve the island befo­re any unp­lea­sant situa­ti­on can deve­lop.

Score­s­by­oya

A bit later, we hap­pen to find to wal­rus­ses on a litt­le ice­berg. A mother with a litt­le calf! Well, „litt­le“ is a rela­ti­ve term when it comes to wal­rus­ses. But it is real­ly a very young one, still living on its mother’s milk rather than mus­sels.

Rijpfjord

We drop the anchor in Wordie­buk­ta in the late after­noon. This is whe­re the Ger­man Kriegs­ma­ri­ne had their war wea­ther sta­ti­on cal­led Hau­de­gen. The men were picked up in Sep­tem­ber 1945, being the very last Ger­man mili­ta­ry unit of the Second World War to sur­ren­der. Some­thing that they were very hap­py to do. The hut is still the­re. A bizar­re bit of histo­ry and a bizar­re place.

Hau­de­gen

Wed
8 Aug
2018

After many hours of sai­ling time, we had rea­ched some of the nor­t­hern­most islands of Spits­ber­gen. Not the very nor­t­hern­most one, Sjuøya­ne are still fur­ther north, but the­re is inde­ed a Nord­kapp (North Cape) on this island!

Cherms­i­deoya

A litt­le evening hike takes us across the island, over per­fect­ly deve­lo­ped anci­ent beach ter­races, across hills of gla­cier-polished crystal­li­ne base­ment rocks, though a litt­le val­ley. A beau­tiful, remo­te, silent and very arc­tic place!

Cherms­i­deoya

But unbe­lie­va­ble how much pla­s­tic are washed up here on the­se bea­ches. Nobo­dy is ever get­ting here who could clean up. We have to go here with Anti­gua one day …

P.S. Five minu­tes after wri­ting the­se lines, we pul­led a huge fishing net out of the water. The­re was alre­a­dy a num­ber of dead birds ent­an­gled in it, Brünich’s and Black guil­l­emots. No idea whe­re we are going to store it until Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but the main thing is, it is not floa­ting around in the water any­mo­re!

Wed
8 Aug
2018

The wind out the­re at sea has final­ly cal­med down and it is time for us to get on. We want to sail up to the nor­t­hern side of Nord­aus­t­land and later around Spits­ber­gen, so the­re are still a lot of miles wai­ting for us. We take some of them today.

During the very first mile, we get a very plea­sant sur­pri­se, a litt­le sen­sa­ti­on even, as we see a Beard­ed seal lying on the beach! Have you ever seen a Beard­ed seal lying on the beach? No? Exact­ly. That does hard­ly ever hap­pen. Beard­ed seals lie in the water or on ice and not on the shore. But this one does not seem to know that.

Mus­ham­na

North of Wij­defjord, we meet a simi­lar­ly unu­su­al Min­ke wha­le. Nor­mal­ly, Min­ke wha­les do not care much about boats and peo­p­le and they do not show much more than a short glim­pse of their back and fin. But this one does not seem to know that (am I repe­ti­ti­ve?). This wha­le is real­ly curious, it is swim­ming towards us again and again and diving through under the boat, play­ing with us!

Wij­defjord

We plough our way to the nor­the­ast now, the­re is some gent­ly swell, cal­ming fur­ther down, and the hours and the miles are going by. Not long any­mo­re befo­re we can anchor and go for a walk, some­whe­re remo­te.

Tue
7 Aug
2018

A pret­ty grey and over lar­ge parts also wet day, but we made a lot out of it. A love­ly over the tun­dra, enjoy­ing gre­at views of the inland val­leys around Mus­ham­na, a visit to the famous trap­per sta­ti­on and a beach walk back to the lagoon whe­re Arc­ti­ca II was ancho­red.

Mus­ham­na

Later, we made ano­ther walk in the oppo­si­te direc­tion. I have been told that can­yo­ning is in, so we went for it. Some deep insight into the Devo­ni­an lay­ers, impres­si­ve lay­ers with inte­res­t­ing details and struc­tures, plus a lot of water. Tor­ren­ti­al around the feet and drip­ping from abo­ve.

Mus­ham­na

In the evening, Pål show­ed his talents as a chef, making per­fect use of his fresh­ly and very local­ly caught arc­tic char. Deli­cious!

Mon
6 Aug
2018

The anchor was on the bot­tom in Mus­ham­na, we were about to finish a cosy evening and call it a day as a small seal was seen near the beach ent­an­gled in a pie­ce of fishing net, fight­ing for its life. All this pla­s­tic in the sea and on the shore or else­whe­re in the envi­ron­ment is so dis­gus­ting! What is so dif­fi­cult about put­ting old fishing gear or wha­te­ver it is in a con­tai­ner in the har­bour or whe­re­ver? Why do end­less quan­ti­ties of it con­stant­ly end up in the sea, caus­ing immense dama­ge to the envi­ron­ment and slow and pain­ful deaths to count­less ani­mals?

Mus­ham­na

In this case, at least, we could help. It was a small seal, pro­ba­b­ly a young Rin­ged seal, which I could easi­ly grab in the shal­low water and lift up on the beach, so Pål could cut the net with a sharp kni­fe. The net had alre­a­dy star­ted to cut into the skin around the neck, so the poor beast must have been clo­se to suf­fo­ca­ting and it was real­ly high time! Of cour­se it was under shock and it nee­ded some moments until it star­ted to calm down again and to breath free­ly, but then it swam away, making a very healt­hy and lively impres­si­on on us, so we are sure it is in good shape again! Pro­ba­b­ly it was just our ima­gi­na­ti­on, but when it actual­ly dived through under our boat, we had the impres­si­on it did so to say thank you and good­bye. A won­derful moment that made us real­ly hap­py! I don’t want to think of all the ani­mals which suf­fer a simi­lar fate wit­hout anyo­ne around who could help, but some­ti­mes you are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and able to do th! e right thing. Plea­se, ever­y­bo­dy, be respon­si­ble with pla­s­tic!

Mus­ham­na

Mon
6 Aug
2018

It is sup­po­sed to be quite win­dy today out the­re off the coast, so we are hap­py to be safe­ly at anchor in this love­ly and well-shel­te­red bay in Lief­defjord. The clouds are han­ging low and the­re is litt­le to see of the beau­tiful land­scape, so we take the mor­ning more or less off and have some time to talk about polar bears in some detail.

Horn­baek­pol­len

It is clea­ring up a litt­le bit in the after­noon, and soon we are out and about again. The clouds have lifted just enough to give us some grey­ish but fine views of Erik­breen, Horn­bæk­pol­len and Lief­defjord. During the hig­hest bits of our walk, we are diving into the clouds. Very atmo­sphe­ric, but it is quite good to know the area pret­ty well now.

Horn­baek­pol­len

After a visit to Hil­mar Nøis’ old hut Texas Bar, we steam on to Mus­ham­na. Tomor­row is also sup­po­sed to be win­dy at sea, so that should be a good place to anchor.

Sun
5 Aug
2018

It took a bit lon­ger than expec­ted to lea­ve in the mor­ning becau­se the day began just as yes­ter­day finis­hed: with a fami­ly of polar bears. Pos­si­bly the same ones that we saw last night, but 2 fami­lies are sup­po­sed in the area, so we don’t know for sure, they may be dif­fe­rent ones. Today’s polar bears were inte­res­ted in a depot of gar­ba­ge and fuel which sup­po­sedly belongs to the Sys­sel­man­nen. They went their way after a while.

Sal­ly­ham­na

We did the same and con­tin­ued towards Raud­fjord, which tur­ned out to be so fog­gy that we left again soon and set cour­se to the east. The visi­bi­li­ty cle­ared up as we ente­red Wood­fjor­den, so we went to one of the small islands for a love­ly tun­dra walk. Natu­re has so much to offer, often on a small sca­le. If you just want big ani­mals and spec­ta­cu­lar, big sce­n­ery, then you may not find much here, but if you have a sen­se for all the small things, the struc­tures, the colours, the lichens and the rocks, the birds and the tun­dra, then you can spend a lot of time here.

Andoya­ne

Andoya­ne

Sat
4 Aug
2018

The nor­thwest of Spits­ber­gen does not exact­ly encou­ra­ge hiking with its rocky and steep ter­rain and the gla­cier-cover­ed inland. But the­re are some oppor­tu­ni­ties, and we grab­bed one to ven­ture into this world of ice and steep rocks.

Hiking

Later on Dan­s­køya, we were gree­ted by har­bour seals. Back to a world full of life after the rug­ged high-alpi­ne land­scape ear­lier today!

Vir­go­ham­na

This altog­e­ther had made the day alre­a­dy more than com­ple­te, but Pål’s sharp eyes dis­co­ved a polar bear fami­ly on a steep, rock shore and they gave us about half an hour of unfor­gettable obser­va­tions! Love­ly to see the 3 ani­mals, all of them healt­hy and in good shape!

Fug­loya

Fug­loya

Fri
3 Aug
2018

Now it was time for a good hike, so we took off for a cou­ple of hours in Kross­fjor­den, having at look at the remains of a Ger­man wea­ther sta­ti­on from the dark years of the Second World War and then hiking up to some hills and rid­ges which pro­vi­ded some gre­at views over the wide coas­tal plain that stret­ches from here to the west coast, cal­led Die­sets­let­ta.

Sig­ne­ham­na

And who would have thought that we were able to explo­re this coas­tal plain from the other side just a few hours later? The coast of Die­sets­let­ta is very expo­sed and it is defi­ni­te­ly not on the list of com­mon­ly used landing sites, but today it was so calm that we just had to use the oppor­tu­ni­ty! A beau­tiful rocky coast with some small, hid­den bea­ches, a wide-open tun­dra land with lakes and rivers and moun­ta­ins with inte­res­t­ing colours and struc­tures fur­ther inland.

Die­sets­let­ta

After a cou­ple of calm hours the anchor went to the bot­tom in beau­tiful sur­roun­dings in Mag­da­le­nefjord, whe­re Pål took care of today’s catch of fish.

Grav­ne­set

Thu
2 Aug
2018

We fill the die­sel tanks up once again in Ny-Åle­sund to be rea­dy for
wha­te­ver may come and of cour­se we take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a walk
around. Addi­tio­nal­ly, I need to buy some socks, and this is whe­re you
get the best ones in the world!

Ny-Åle­sund

Later, we wan­ted to visit a bird cliff, but that was alre­a­dy occup­pied.
Not too bad eit­her. We can’t com­plain about the polar bear den­si­ty,
the­se are num­bers 2 and 3 for us, and it’s just the 3rd day in the trip!

Ossi­an-Sars­fjel­let

The wind had star­ted to blow up here in Kongsfjor­den, so we moved up to
Kross­fjor­den for a calm night at anchor. Not wit­hout visi­ting the migh­ty
Lil­lie­höök­breen on the way!

Lil­lie­hook­breen

Wed
1 Aug
2018

Still the same day. Sud­den­ly it cle­ared com­ple­te­ly up, blue sky, bright sun, calm seas! What a pan­ora­ma, what a view! As if it had not been enough like this, we were wel­co­med in Kongsfjor­den by a lar­ge pod of Belugas. It must have been far more than 100, they were just ever­y­whe­re!

Kongsfjord

We still had time to make a litt­le detour to a coas­tal cave on Blom­strand. The con­di­ti­ons could not have been bet­ter, so we just made use of the oppor­tu­ni­ty. It was the first time that I mana­ged to take a pho­to of that cave that I was hap­py with. Good stuff! Thanks to a litt­le rock ledge in the cave that I could step on, my 11-24 mm wide-ang­le len­se and a flash­light. Yeah!

Kongsfjord

Kongsfjord

Kongsfjord

Kongsfjord

Not much later we went along­side in Ny-Åle­sund. What a gol­den evening! Bright suns­hi­ne, no wind whatsoe­ver. Of cour­se we wal­ked around, took pho­tos or just enjoy­ed. A good­night-beer in the mid­night sun roun­ded a gre­at day off, much to our delight.

Ny-Åle­sund

Ny-Åle­sund

Ny-Åle­sund

Ny-Åle­sund

Ny-Åle­sund

Ny-Åle­sund

Ny-Åle­sund

Wed
1 Aug
2018

In For­lands­und, we made a first landing to get some first impres­si­ons of the arc­tic natu­re clo­se-up. A litt­le walk on Prins Karls For­land to get some tun­dra under our rub­ber boots. A bit grey, but still a lot to see. Later, we found some wal­rus on a nar­row spit of land fur­ther north in For­lands­und.

Sel­vaa­gen

Sel­vaa­gen

Sel­vaa­gen

Sel­vaa­gen

Sar­stan­gen

Sar­stan­gen

Sar­stan­gen

Tue
31 Jul
2018

It was just a short stop in Lon­gye­ar­by­en to get used to civi­li­sa­ti­on and road traf­fic again, be it with engi­nes or fea­thers, and then we took off again into the big, wide, open, arc­tic world. This time with Arc­ti­ca II. Advan­ced Spits­ber­gen! Pål Remen had alre­a­dy been our skip­per in 2015, he has spent the last win­ter with his part­ner on the trap­per sta­ti­on at Aus­t­fj­ord­ne­set. Moni­ka Hil­ler com­ple­tes the team as a gui­de, and we are joi­n­ed by 9 fel­low explo­rers, so we are rea­dy to go!

Advent­da­len

We have a dream start in Isfjor­den, with bright suns­hi­ne, the water lying like a mir­ror, and a wide pan­o­r­amic view. The clouds over Trygg­ham­na loo­ked quite dra­ma­tic, but that was the only dra­ma­tic thing about the wea­ther even the­re. A polar bear was swim­ming across the fjord, the first one for us in this trip, only a few hours after lea­ving Lon­gye­ar­by­en! We didn’t real­ly get to see him at clo­ser distance, but nevert­hel­ess – gre­at!

Isfjord

Isfjord

It was quite fog­gy in For­lands­und, so most of us had gone to bad when the anchor fell long after mid­night.

Trygg­ham­na

Trygg­ham­na

Sat
28 Jul
2018

We spent the last day in Nord­fjord, name­ly in one of its nor­t­hern bran­ches cal­led Ekm­anfjord. Ama­zing how the land­scapes of Spits­ber­gen could still sur­pri­se and ama­ze us after a trip that felt like months long. The pro­tru­ding cliffs of the moun­ta­ins remind of gothic cathe­drals.

Tun­dra on Blo­mes­let­ta.

A walk and a long hike, accor­ding to choice, took us across a wide-open tun­dra area with some hills and lakes, whe­re we enjoy­ed various flowers, birds, the colours of the tun­dra and all the details that the arc­tic has to offer.

Reinde­er ant­ler in a lake on Blo­mes­let­ta.

Wahl­enberg­breen is a very acti­ve gla­cier and the place that Rolf cho­se for our fare­well to Spits­ber­gen. We moved sil­ent­ly bet­ween many litt­le ice­bergs and ber­gy bits with the Zodiacs to enjoy and say good­bye to the Arc­tic – for this time.

Wahl­enberg­breen: gla­cier and moun­ta­ins.

A fri­end­ly Hump­back wha­le waved us good­bye with the flu­ke just befo­re we went along­side in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Hump­back wha­le in Advent­fjord.