Last night, we had a great sunset at sea, behind the mountains of the island of Austvågøy, while we were gently sailing northeastwards … very nice! A beautiful passage with lovely visual impressions, that’s how we like it!
Sunset over Austvågøy, Lofoten.
And it was just as nice that we still found space in the little harbour of Kabelvåg, although there was already a ship alongside. But we could go alongside that one and thus had a peaceful place to stay for tomorrow. Which is good, because it is supposed to be rather uncomfortable in the area tomorrow.
Storm clouds over Austvågøy, Lofoten.
Which was not exaggerated. During the morning, it was still quite ok, but the clouds spoke a clear language. It started raining towards mid-day. But we had a good time in the museum and in the marine aquarium of Kabelvåg. Warm and dry and lots of interesting stufff to see.
This is where the fishermen lived. 8 men in one room with 4 bunks. In this room, they slept, lived, wworked, cooked, ate and dried their wet fishing gear …
… and this is where the owner of the “Fiskevær” lived, probably best translated as “fishing harbour”.
The afternoon went with lots of rain. Some eiderducks are sitting on the shore, the waves are breaking on the rocks outside the harbour. Some brave people went for a hike, but many prefer to visit the Antigua-cinema and to enjoy a cup of coffee and a book.
King Wikingerkönig Øystein keeps a watchful eye over Kabelvåg.
Even a Jazz concert that was scheduled for tonight in the church is cancelled. Too bad, that would have been perfect for a day like this. But the more cosy it is inside, while the rain is falling outside and the waves are going high at sea.
We were a bit curious how it would be to get Antigua into the small harbour of Nusfjord in the strong winds that we had, but they just calmed down and it turned out to be fine. And so did the afternoon. The weather cleared up and it got really nice and pleasant. And then, Nusfjord is such a lovely place!
Old friends in Nusfjord.
Probably the most famous of the traditional Lofoten fishing villages, Nusfjord is a beautiful setting of old buildings around a small, well-sheltered natural harbour. The old shop was open and very popular, and we went hiking over some rocky hills near the sea, enjoying the views over mountains, the coast and Vestfjord. An extremely enjoyable afternoon!
The harbour of. And, actually, the whole rest of it.
Now we are sailing north (or east, rather) in the evening sun, heading for Kabelvåg.
Some hours sailing (without engine!) took us across Vestfjord to Moskenesøya, the southernmost island of the main chain of the Lofoten islands (there are some outliers, Værøy and Røst, far out in the sea). Most people enjoyed the passage, although it was the first day on the ship. Collateral damage related to the motion of the ship was not unheard of, but rather limited. Good to get some training! We will see some more open water later on this trip.
Leaving Bodø: Captain Mario gives steam.
Sailing across Vestfjord to the Lofoten islands.
But for the moment we are in Reine, one of the southernmost fishing villages in Lofoten. Admittedly, the weather could have been better. But we are on Lofoten. And it is actually really beautiful as soon as some sun is breaking through the clouds!
Rainbow over Reine, Lofoten.
This year’s catch of cod is still hanging on the drying racks, soon it will be taken down for export.
Drying racks with cod in Reine, Lofoten.
Kittiwakes are everyday birds in the north. They are breeding in many places on steep cliffs. But a kittiwake on a nest on a tree in a garden? Never seen that before! 🙂
Kittiwake on a nest on a tree! Quite unusual for these cliff-breeders.
There is always something to discover in these Lofoten fishing villages. Even in grey and wet weather, there are the colours of the wooden houses and the flowers. But it was indeed a good thing that the Café opened at 11 a.m., and almost everybody found the way there soon. No surprise!
Colours of flowers and houses in Reine.
Now we are heading for Nusfjord and curious what the afternoon will bring there.
Bodø! This is where the arctic circle is closing. Not the arctic circle that marks the southernmost appearance of the midnight sun, that is at 66°33’N, about 44 miles south of Bodø. But the circle of the arctic sailing adventures of the summer. The first sailing trip of the arctic starts here in Bodø now in late May and the last one will end here in early November, closing a very large circle of thousands of miles sailing arctic waters, many kilometers in Zodiacs in the fjords, hiking on the tundra, on mountains, lots of adventures, wind and weather, encountering wildlife of all sorts, meeting people … and there will be lots of great photos and many entries here in the arctic blog 2018.
SV Antigua ready to set sail in Bodø.
We will be complete in a few hours, with about 30 travellers from the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, and then we will sail across Vestfjord to spend the next days in Lofoten. Later, we will sail northwards to Tromsø and then the Spitsbergen adventure will start. If you want to join us digitally, then just come back and visit this blog!
I have been asked why there has been no arctic travel blog in a while. The reason is short and conclusive: I have not been in the Arctic recently. I have been in Antarctica and Patagonia – you couldn’t be much further away from the Arctic, yet very familiar! So, there has indeed been a recent and well-fed travel blog, just from the deep south and not from the high north and accordingly on a different website (antarctic.eu, click here to get there).
The arctic travel blog will be continued in a few weeks from now, when we start the northern season under sail early in the second half of May.
The return of the sun to Longyearbyen (solfest = sun festival) was celebrated on Thursday (08 March) in good tradition. On this day, the sun returns to Lognyearbyen after several months of polar night. Just for a few moments and only if the weather is good, but that is enough reason to celebrate with several days of cultural events. This time, there was not a cloud on the sky, so everybody could enjoy the rays of the sun on the skin!
Sun festival in Longyearbyen
Meanwhile, some “old boys” around Robert Hermansen, former boss of the mining company Store Norske, try to come up with a plan to put the already abandoned coal mine settlement of Sveagruva back to life and work. Politicians have already said that they don’t appreciate such plans. For sure, there will be a lot of talking still about Sveagruva in the future.
Elsewhere, suitcases (or rather rucksacks) are being packed: on Sunday (11 March), we will start sailing in Patagonia with SY Anne-Margaretha. This means of course that the travel blog will start again soon! Please visit antarctic.eu for the southern chapters of my travel blog.
“Patagonia under sail with SY Anne-Margaretha: starting on Sunday. The travel blog will then also start soon on antarctic.eu.
There is a blog for our current voyage to Antarctica with the two-mast sailing ship SY Anne-Margaretha. Please click here to visit the blog on antarctic.eu! Reports will start in the next few days and will be transmitted via satellite to the webmaster (so the technology works) and published by him and linked in Facebook the next day.
October brought the terrible crash of the Russian helicopter that fell into Isfjord, not too far away from Barentsburg. All 8 on board perished tragically. This sad event touched everybody in Spitsbergen and many people elsewhere deeply.
For me, it was time to return to the office in October (more about the results later), before we set sails one last time in the Arctic for this year to enjoy the beauty of the approaching polar night in north Norway. Certainly a rather unusual time for tourists to come to these latitudes, but beautiful. Light, snow, scenery, places. Oh yes, and Sea eagles!
Sea eagle in Trollfjord.
In Spitsbergen, the polar night had set in for real. A good time to relax a bit. If you have too much time, you can always remove someone’s letterbox.
No long expeditions, but still, impressions of silent beauty, and time to meet friends – and yourself, after many months of intense travelling. And we could enjoy some northern lights!
Northern light above Foxdalen.
And then the year was almost over. Before we replaced the old calenders, there were some weeks of intense work for the finishing touches on a new edition of the English version of the Spitsbergen guidebook (the very last bit of finetuning happened actually in January – doesn’t really matter, does it?). The most comprehensive (608 pages!) and up-to-date version of this book that exists (I know, the latest version is always the most up-to-date one. And it does not yet exist, physically, it is in print as I am writing this in mid January). It is actually the 10th edition, if I count all languages, starting with the first German edition in 2007, the 5th edition of which is currently available. In spring 2017, it came out for the first time in Norwegian. And now a new English edition. By the way, the third book that I finished and got into print in a year. So I do say without hesitation that I am actually a bit proud! The Spitsbergen guidebook is appreciated by many readers, I know that. That includes professional expedition leaders and guides, which makes me even more proud. Now, if there is one thing that I’d be allowed to wish, then it would be some of the appreciation of readers and colleagues also in some offices, ship owners and travel companies as well as dedicated museums in Norway (mainland). Wouldn’t it be good if you could buy this book on board your ship in Spitsbergen while you travel there? Or, say, at Polaria in Tromsø, a museum/exhibition centre dedicated to Spitsbergen? Maybe one of them happens to stumble over these lines … maybe the word of the appreciation of readers and expedition field staff spreads into those offices. That would be my wish for this book and for me as a polar book writer for the upcoming year.
This is what the new guidebook Spitsbergen-Svalbard (4th edition) will look like.
When this blog is online, then I am already off and far in the south, in Ushuaia or already on board SY Anne-Margaretha to enjoy Antarctica under sails. An amazing thought, and now it is about to become reality! So come back to this site to check the blog!
Thank you for reading this far. Best wishes for the new year!
Public attention in Longyearbyen in September 2017 was for some time largely attracted by several polar bears who seemed happy to stay around in the neighbourhood. Of course, also the locals love to see a polar bear, but not where they live, go for a walk and let their children go to school.
An Italian tourist managed to get lost big time on Fuglefjella, west of Longyearbyen. That kept the local branch of the Red Cross and other SAR forces pretty busy for a very long night, so it was hard to say if one should laugh or cry in the end. The man was found and saved in good condition, and that’s the most important thing in the end, doesn’t it?
Evening cruise in Kongsfjord.
We spent a couple of really lovely days in Pyramiden. You will probably know that this is indeed a very special place, and if you are open for the partly pretty bizarre impressions that the place has to offer, then you can just keep discovering forever! That’s just what we did – not forever, but for a couple of days that I really don’t want to miss. I guess my personal highlight was the hike over Yggdrasilkampen, the mountain south of Pyramiden. Just stunning views! Click here to check it out as a full 360 degree panorama. It would have been even more fun without a cold, but still … and of course, there is always something new to discover in Pyramiden itself. And a group of nice people. What else could you ask for? In the end, nobody really wanted to leave.
View from Yggdrasilkampen over Mimerdalen and Pyramiden.
What else did September bring? Light, light and light. That’s what this transition time between midnight sun and polar night is famous for. Never-ending sunrises and sunsets, skies that can be anything from orange and pink to red and blue, a dark-green shine on the glaciers … we got all of that, and much more. The only light phenomenon that was a bit scarce was the northern light. Not that there were none at all, but we had better northern light seasons in the past.
The famous mountains Tre Kroner (“three Crowns”) in Kongsfjord in evening light.
But what else do you need of you are surrounded by such scenic magic?
The police raid on the local drug scene – which is not the world’s biggest one – was probably the biggest public excitement in August in Longyearbyen. They have to show every couple of years that drugs are not tolerated in such a small and remote community. This appears not to have been a great success this year, as they had to release those again who were initially taken in custody. But on the other hand, if you find out in the end that nothing much had happened (at least as far as you have evidence for), then it is not a bad thing either, is it?
As far as I am concerned, I continued around Svalbard on board Arctica II (“advanced Spitsbergen”; there is still, by the way, an empty seat on this (German speaking) trip in 2018). In that sense, August started in late July, as that’s when we left Longyearbyen again. And on the very same day we could venture for a lovely walk on Bohemanflya. Which is really not far away from Longyearbyen, but you have to have the right weather for a landing there, and we did!
Grave on Bohemanflya.
The weather continued to be fine for some time. I don’t know how many times I had sailed up and down the northern west coast of Spitsbergen, between Kongsfjord and Magdalenefjord, that bit of coast that is known as “Dei Sju Isfjella” (“the seven icebergs”) since the 17th century? And I had never been ashore on this exposed, wild coastline! Obviously a situation that could not be tolerated forever. In bright sunshine and amazingly calm seas, we went ashore in Kvedfjordbukta and enjoyed life there for a while, feeling that we might be the first people there in many years. And that may actually have been pretty close to the truth. A good feeling that we could enjoy yet another couple of times during this trip!
Kvedfjordbukta: rare opportunity for a landing there in perfect conditions.
This includes the amazing days in Lady Franklinfjord and – a geographic highlight in the truest sense of the word – the landing on Rossøya, the northernmost bit of land in the whole of Svalbard. Not that it is a very significant island beyond its furthest north position. But it is the northernmost one. That’s already more than good enough, isn’t it? 🙂
There is no land in Svalbard north of Rossøya.
Heinrich Eggenfellner is putting us ashore.
A walrus (dead) and a polar bear (very much alive) on Edgeøya.
Oh yes, and then we still managed to finish the Spitsbergen calendar 2018 in late August. We are getting better every year, even though it was not available in July, as I had been hoping for. But as you can see, we were not lazy in the book (& related) publishing department either!
Considering public news, July was a rather calm month in Spitsbergen. Which is great. No news are good news. Of course, there is always something, but all within reason. The reindeer were doing well, there were no avalanches and no extreme weather situations. We could pretty much just enjoy!
And so we did, mostly with SV Antigua. We started actually already in late June, and the first highlight – I am coming to my personal perspective – came quickly in shape of a rare landing near Spitsbergen’s south cape (Sørkapp).
Landing close to Sørkapp (the south cape) of Spitsbergen.
Other people who were there with me will probably rather remember the Blue whale that we saw close up later the same day, or the polar fox family a day later. And no doubt, these are all precious memories. But for me personally, well, I just love rare landings, these hidden places that almost nobody knows and even fewer people ever get to. But these places to all have their secrets. More often than not, there is something exciting to discover!
Blue whale in Storfjord.
But still, the wildlife is a big chunk of Spitsbergen’s beauty. And the sighting of a female polar bear with one cub who were feasting on the remains of a dead whale on Danskøya were amongst the highlights of these weeks!
Happy polar bear family and an unhappy whale on Danskøya.
And if you ask anyone who was on board, then I am sure most will tell you that the landing on an ice floe is one of the most precious memories that they took home from this great trip. How often do you have the chance to stand on drift ice on 80 degrees north? Feel like Nansen! But not for 3 years … we left a bit earlier.
Ice landing on 80 degrees north.
Back in Longyearbyen, I could finally finish my arctic Christmas book (German only, sorry). The second book that I could finish and get printed this year, after the Norwegian version of my Svalbard guidebook! Finally, considering the arctic Christmas book, as I have to admit. It took me a good 10 years since I started with this one! Making a book does always take time, but in this case one of the main problems had been someone who would be able to create the drawings that I had on my mind for this book. Until I saw last year – also on Antigua, by the way – what Norbert Wachter could do with a pencil and a sheet of paper. So we went, and here we are! Done! 🙂
I have to start with a confession: I forgot the main excitement in Longyearbyen in April: the town was running out of toilet paper! People in arctic Longyearbyen seem to a surprisingly large degree be willing to accept climate change, they keep cool when the Russian military supposedly exercises attacks on their home, who cares, some loss is part of the game. But no toilet paper anymore? That’s serious business!
The excitement about the supposed flooding of the seed vault / “doomsday vault” falls into a similar category. Indeed, in October 2016, during a period with a lot of rain, there was some water coming into the entrance area of the vault. That should not have happened and those who were concerned with it were not happy and some money was to be spent to get things right, but what had actually happened was far from being any real drama. But that came more than half a year later in international media. Someone happened to pick up that marginalium, spiced it with some drama, tolerantly overlooked that it had all happened more than half a year ago and blew it out into the world, where it was picked up by surprisingly many media, including some serious ones. Nobody came on the idea to check what had really happened, there was a lot of recycling of copied information and that is usually not a good idea. Checking the seed vault’s website would have been enough, but that was obviously too much to ask for. Well, I am happy that this website did not follow the hype.
Regarding my own polar perspective, Jan Mayen was the main event in June. For the fourth time, I went to that volcanic island in the north, 3 days of sailing from Iceland, on a small boat across a big sea. Jan Mayen is an extremely fascinating place. The more time you spend there, the more you realize how much there is to see. As usual, we made a lot of kilometres during our various hikes. Next to many other impressions, the lava caves on Beerenberg were the main thing for me this time. While a group of mountaineers climbed up to the peak of Beerenberg (where I had been in 2015), I took the opportunity to explore a couple of lava caves in Schmelckdalen on the south slope of Beerenberg. Stunning! It is a bizarre feeling to be actually inside Beerenberg, in the guts of this arctic volcano. I probably don’t have to mention that it is a hard-to-get-to place. That was my highlight in June.
Lava cave in Schmelckdalen on Beerenberg, Jan Mayen.
After the big Antarctic Odyssey, I went straight up to Longyearbyen. One long trip from the southernmost regular airport in the world to the northernmost one, from the Beagle Channel to Isfjord, for a couple of weeks of arctic winter before the summer season was about to start. The atmosphere in Spitsbergen is stunning in early April, when there is still “warm” light. Sunsets that turn into sunrises, no night in between, just a bit of hauntingly beautiful twilight. The blue-red hour is longer than 60 minutes on 78 degrees latitude. “Warm” in inverted kommas, obviously 🙂
Click on thumbnail to open an enlarged version of the specific photo.
A highlight that remains a vivid memory was actually the trip to the coal mining settlement of Sveagruva, because it turned out to be a unique opportunity. Coal mining was on standby at that time, there was only maintaince going on, but no production despite the opening of a brand new coal mine at Lunckefjellet in February 2014. It never went into productive operation. So the Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani had decided to open Sveagruva for limited tourism. It was even possible to visit the coal mine, Svea Nord.
Click on thumbnail to open an enlarged version of the specific photo.
As the decision was made in Oslo in October 2017 that the days of coal mining in Sveagruva are over, the place and associated coal mines will be closed. It seems quite unlikely that there will be tourism or any other activitiy there in the future. So it is good to have used that opportunity to visit Sveagruva and the mine, Svea Nord and to get a good impression of coal mining, which was the dominant activitiy in Spitsbergen for a century. And a coal mine is a fascinating place, indeed!
But then, it is good to get out and back to the sun, does not set anymore. To get back to the endless snow plains, to our beloved east coast, where the sea does still freeze in April, where you can find beautiful ice …
Click on thumbnail to open an enlarged version of the specific photo.
Talking about fjord ice: a Russian group made a tragic experience with fjord ice in Tempelfjord in late April, when their snow mobiles broke through the ice. Several people went into the water and could only be saved under dramatic circumstances by the Norwegian SAR forces. Tragically, one guide died later in the hospital.