Mon
5 Aug
2019

The sun wakes us up after a calm night at anchor. We are sur­roun­ded by gla­ciers and high, rug­ged moun­ta­ins. One of the moun­ta­ins is less high and rug­ged than the other ones. Knu­v­len, as it is cal­led, is actual­ly just 330 met­res high. A pie­ce of cake, as one might think. Nevert­hel­ess, the rocky ter­rain makes the ascent quite hard. But the view is a gre­at reward!

Back on board, some of us jump into the sea to cool down after the hike. The sun is warm and high on the sky, and we enjoy lunch out­side on deck.

Later, we have rea­ched a wal­rus colo­ny on Prins Karls For­land. Talk about right place and right time: some fog banks have shrou­ded the area with grey and mist. But the curtain goes up just as we drop the anchor. And to make things even bet­ter, the wal­rus are in gre­at shape. A wel­co­me comit­tee of three of the­se migh­ty seals comes curious­ly swim­ming very clo­se towards us as we are stan­ding sil­ent­ly on the beach. It is an ama­zing expe­ri­ence to be so clo­se to the­se huge crea­tures! The­re is ano­ther group hau­led out on the beach, not a lar­ge group, but quite acti­ve and beau­tiful­ly pla­ced in the evening sun, with a gla­cier in the back­ground.

Gal­lery – Trygg­ham­na-Poo­le­pyn­ten – 05 August 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Skip­per Peter has din­ner rea­dy as we get back on board. What a day, what a life!

Sun
4 Aug
2019

And again: wel­co­me on board, we’ll hoist the sails again and set cour­se for Spits­ber­gen! This time, on the smal­ler, beau­tiful yacht Arc­ti­ca II, a real expe­di­ti­on boat, strong and stur­dy. As soon as we have got ever­y­thing done, we cast off and steer out into Isfjord. It is a won­derful start, with suns­hi­ne, no wind.

Con­side­ring the gre­at con­di­ti­ons today, we make use of the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make a landing as soon as we can. I am plea­sed to get back to Bohe­man­nes­et. A beau­tiful place, but it is very expo­sed, so some­ti­mes years go bet­ween visits. This time, we have been here just a good 3 weeks ago with Anti­gua. It is nice to start whe­re we finis­hed recent­ly. In con­trast to last time, it is real­ly nice and calm now, so the landing ope­ra­ti­on is a pie­ce of cake and we can just enjoy the beau­ty of the place. It was not far from here, at Rijps­burg, that Søren Zacha­ri­as­sen began an ope­ra­ti­on that is now usual­ly con­side­red the begin­ning of com­mer­cial coal mining in Spits­ber­gen. But it was not suc­cessful.

Gal­lery – Lon­gye­ar­by­en-Bohe­man­nes­et – 04 August 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Any­way, for us today, Bohe­man­nes­et is „just“ a beau­tiful and silent place. A gre­at begin­ning of this new trip!

Later the same evening, we crui­se for ano­ther 2 hours until we drop anchor in Trygg­ham­na for a calm night, to get some good rest.

Thu
11 Jul
2019

The last day – time is fly­ing! We have made good speed and arri­ved outer Isfjord in the ear­ly mor­ning, so we con­tin­ued a few miles to the north, into For­lands­und (how many times did we sail through For­lands­und on this trip ..?). We went ashore in one of the beau­tiful bays on Spitsbergen’s west coast, and after a full day at sea, it was good to get some tun­dra under our rub­ber boots again! Next to all the beau­tiful flowers and wild­life of the tun­dra, we found remains of a dead sperm wha­le on the beach and a lepi­du­rus gla­cia­lis (no idea about the com­mon name) in a litt­le lake.

Gal­lery – Daud­manns­od­den-Ymer­buk­ta – 11th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Later, we went ashore once again, then in Ymer­buk­ta. Some of us wal­ked along the shore towards the gla­cier and others crossed the huge morai­ne to enjoy silent views of the arc­tic natu­re. Time to say good­bye – for this time. It was gre­at, big thanks to all of you who were part of it!

Wed
10 Jul
2019

A rela­xed day at sea. We have got a lot of miles to cover from nor­t­hern Storfjord back to Isfjord, and we don’t have an awful lot of days left.

Gal­lery – Sør­kapp – 10th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The south cape (here some pan­ora­mas) pas­sa­ge is nice and calm, so we can spend time in the lec­tu­re hall to ela­bo­ra­te on the polar fox, sea ice, trap­pers and the arc­tic sea­sons.

Tue
9 Jul
2019

A long stretch took us up to Ginev­ra­bot­nen last night. This is the nor­t­hern­most part of Storfjord, north of Barent­søya. The­re is still quite a bit of drift ice in this area. We have arri­ved in the high arc­tic! The wea­ther is calm and clear, it is over­cast, but beau­tiful. Almost a bit melan­cho­lic. Very fit­ting for this high arc­tic envi­ron­ment.

Gal­lery – Ginev­ra­bot­nen – 09th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We get to do a love­ly Zodiac crui­se in the ice, but later, the clouds come down and turn into fog. Then the­re comes wind on top of it. Altog­e­ther, it is a rather unp­lea­sant com­bi­na­ti­on. We have to scrap a landing on Barent­søya which we had plan­ned ori­gi­nal­ly.

A visit to the Würz­bur­ger Hut at Sundneset/Barentsøya can be done online here.

Mon
8 Jul
2019

Final­ly we have left the west coast behind – as beau­tiful as it is the­re! But now on to some­thing dif­fe­rent. Wild and rough, somehow more arc­tic. It is not a gent­le land­scape here in the east. Almost hosti­le, this coast of steep rock cliffs and gla­ciers.

But now the wea­ther is on our side, at least for today. The south cape was calm last night, and now it is calm here in Storfjord. We make use of the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a clo­se look at Mark­ham­breen. One of tho­se gla­ciers on the east coast that has retrea­ted in recent years to give way to a beach and a litt­le bay. Just as Croll­breen and Emil’janovbreen fur­ther north. But to our sur­pri­se we found that even more recent­ly Mark­ham­breen has advan­ced again, so the­re is no bay any­mo­re! Lucki­ly it was calm enough to land on the outer, expo­sed side of the beach. The ice cliff that is now res­t­ing on the land­ward side of that beach is pret­ty wild and crev­as­sed, with a litt­le push end morai­ne towards the beach.

Gal­lery – East coast: Mark­ham­breen & Kval­vå­gen – 08th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

A few hours later we went ashore at Bol­tod­den in the lar­ge bay of Kval­vå­gen. A fasci­na­ting coas­tal land­scape with huge blocks of quar­zi­tic sand­stone, and of cour­se the geo­lo­gi­cal high­light, the dino­saur foot­prints!

We made some walks along the coast, into a silent val­ley and up to some moun­tain peaks with stun­ning views to dive deeper into this ama­zing, high-arc­tic envi­ron­ment. Din­ner just had to wait a while today …

Sun
7 Jul
2019

Final­ly, a wea­ther win­dow has ope­ned up bet­ween all the­se low pres­su­res that have been pas­sing through here now. Accor­ding to the fore­cast, we should have some calm days ahead of us now. So let’s go down south and around the south cape!

The sea was calm and the sun was shi­ning, so we didn’t want to miss the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make a landing in Hyt­te­vi­ka. One of the most beau­tiful places in Spits­ber­gen! The sce­n­ery is stun­ning, and it is a perl of arc­tic natu­re. Ten thou­sands of Litt­le auks are bree­ding on the slo­pes, fil­ling the place with life and noi­se. The tun­dra is green and lush and the reinde­er are fat and num­e­rous.

Gal­lery – Hyt­te­vi­ka – 07th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

This is whe­re Wan­ny Wold­stad win­tered seve­ral times from 1932, the famous fema­le polar bear hun­ter from north Nor­way.

Now we have set cou­res for the south cape. The sea is calm and the sun is shi­ning, and we are loo­king for­ward to the east coast of Spits­ber­gen!

Sat
6 Jul
2019

Back in Isfjord – again. Our hide-and-seek with the wind. Well, today we are not real­ly hiding from the wind. We are steam­ing against a force 7 into Ymer­buk­ta, whe­re we spend some time near Esmark­breen. Later, while at anchor, we get some impres­si­ve gusts. The anchor is drag­ging while I lec­tu­re about geo­lo­gy.

Gal­lery – Isfjord – 06th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Later, the wind is on our side: fil­ling the sails as we move across Isfjord, towards Barents­burg. The­re, we spend an inte­res­t­ing after­noon and a cheerful evening in the bar of the bre­wery.

Fri
5 Jul
2019

It does not hap­pen too often that we visit one and the same place twice during one trip. But today, we are back at Sar­stan­gen, whe­re we star­ted – feels like months ago! Back then, we had the two polar bears, which was gre­at, but … we could obvious­ly not visit the wal­ru­ses. But today was the day for that.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, we clea­ned up a sec­tion of the beach, so a lot of mari­ne pla­s­tic lit­ter is now remo­ved from the beach and sto­wed in bags on deck on Anti­gua.

Gal­lery – For­lands­und – 05th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Later, we ancho­red in Sel­vå­gen on Prins Karls For­land. Every once in a while, a few rain­drops whe­re fall­ling, but not too much, and other than that, the clouds made for a beau­tiful, quiet, almost melan­cho­lic atmo­sphe­re. We could make some love­ly walks and hikes across the tun­dra plains and up to some hills for stun­ning views.

Also in Sel­vå­gen, the­re was less pla­s­tic on the beach after our depar­tu­re than befo­re. The deck is fil­ling up with old fishing nets.

Thu
4 Jul
2019

Right place, right time – again! We can enjoy the fasci­na­ting land­scape on and around Cora­hol­men in bril­li­ant suns­hi­ne. It is almost too warm!

Accor­ding to the wea­ther fore­cast, Isfjord should have been calm as a lake today. This is not real­ly the case, but nevert­hel­ess we make it ashore on an expo­sed beach at Bohe­man­nes­et. A stun­ning place with beau­tiful flowers, inte­res­t­ing geo­lo­gy and gre­at pan­o­r­amic views.

Gal­lery – Isfjord – 04th July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

We make full use of the nice day and make an evening Zodiac tour to Sveab­reen. Later, we can enjoy a fan­ta­stic BBQ that the gal­ley team has arran­ged for us. Heads off!

Wed
3 Jul
2019

We have moved into some of the inner bran­ches of Isfjord to enjoy some fan­ta­stic sce­n­ery alt­hough the wea­ther is actual­ly quite grey. Still, it is beau­tiful. And we meet a pod of Belugas in red­dish melt­wa­ter.

Kapp Smith was one of the places whe­re the age of sys­te­ma­tic sci­ence and explo­ra­ti­on began in Spits­ber­gen: this is whe­re the Nor­we­gi­an pho­to­gram­me­tric expe­di­ti­on of 1936 was based. Air­planes rather than dog sled­ges. Today, turn­sto­nes and arc­tic terns live on the beau­tiful­ly colourful tun­dra.

Gal­lery – Dick­son­fjord – 03rd July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Many of us hike from Dick­son­fjord to Ekm­anfjord, fol­lo­wing a colourful car­pet of various flowers. The rocks are full of fos­sils, others con­sist of white anhy­drite („gypsym“). Pink-foo­ted geese are bree­ding in flat tun­dra are­as, and red-throa­ted divers are sit­ting on a small lake.

We spend a beau­tiful­ly calm night at anchor, while the clouds are coming down lower and lower.

Tue
2 Jul
2019

The main point in out plan­ning is still to avo­id the are­as of strong winds that are curr­ent­ly raging in seve­ral parts of Spits­ber­gen. The low pres­su­res are pas­sing through one by one, wit­hout a break.

But we are doing pret­ty well so far. Today, this brings us to St. Jons­fjord, which turns out to be the place to be for today. The first hike yields beau­tiful views on moun­ta­ins, gla­ciers and the fjord, with ple­nty of beau­tiful flowers.

Gal­lery – St. Jons­fjord – 02nd July 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Later, we pass a lar­ge, quite acti­ve gla­cier and many small ice­bergs. Coin­ci­dence takes us then to a place whe­re a retrea­ting gla­cier has crea­ted a fasci­na­ting lagoon land­scape. A strong tidal cur­rent rus­hes through the cur­ved chan­nel that con­nects the lagoon and the fjord. 288 met­res alti­tu­de pro­vi­de a stun­ning pan­ora­ma over the who­le fjord area.

Mon
1 Jul
2019

We had been hoping for a good hike in Kross­fjord. What we get ins­tead is a lot of wind, wind and even more wind.

It is a bit more calm at Lil­lie­höök­breen – and very impres­si­ve. An ice cliff, seve­ral kilo­me­ters wide, and two huge cal­vings.

Gal­lery – Kross­fjord – Kongsfjord – 01st July 2019

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Our next bet is Möl­lerfjord, but no luck here eit­her. So we put ever­y­thing on Kongsfjord. And here things are inde­ed bet­ter, so we get a love­ly after­noon walk on Blom­strand­hal­vøya. Stun­ning rocky coas­tal sce­n­ery with a litt­le cave.

Sun
30 Jun
2019

We have got good sai­ling wind to bring us nor­thwards to Mag­da­le­nefjord, whe­re we anchor late in the night and then wake up with suns­hi­ne and two polar bears in view. Then we con­ti­nue nor­thwards, to the ice edge. It is not far, north Spits­ber­gen is still com­ple­te­ly in ice. We meet the drift ice edge in Smee­ren­burg­fjord. Rug­ged moun­ta­ins make the back­ground sce­n­ery, and the sun is shi­ning. Stun­ning!

Gal­lery – Drift ice edge – 30th June 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Pas­sing Smee­ren­burg and Vir­go­ham­na, we sail west­wards to the open sea and then turn north. See how far we get. Well, not far at all. We don’t make it to 80 degrees. Ice, wind and poor visi­bi­li­ty as soon as the­re is ice.

We don’t stay long, then we set sail and cour­se to the south.

Sat
29 Jun
2019

Ano­ther beau­tiful day – some­thing you should not take for gran­ted here in Spits­ber­gen the­se days, con­side­ring the wea­ther fore­cast. The­re are some strong low pres­su­res around in the north Atlan­tic. But Kongsfjord was the right place at the right time. We spent the mor­ning sit­ting high up at a bird cliff, enjoy­ing stun­ning views and a lively con­cert of Brünich’s guil­l­emots and kit­ti­wa­kes.

Gal­lery – Kongsfjord – 29th June 2019

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Also Ny-Åle­sund was quite lively, espe­ci­al­ly in and around Kongsfjord­bu­tik­ken, with a lar­ge group of tou­rists from eas­tern Asia. Very lively. A slight­ly dif­fe­rent kind of arc­tic tou­rism. It seems to be in their natu­re to be … effi­ci­ent. In other words: soon it was calm again, so we could turn our atten­ti­on to the air­ship mast and the histo­ry of the north pole expe­di­ti­ons.