Unfort­u­na­te­ly, but not real­ly sur­pri­sing, we also have to can­cel our last Spits­ber­gen-voya­ge this year with SV Anti­gua (08-18 Sep­tem­ber 2020). Even though Nor­way will start to allow most Euro­pean tou­rists into the coun­try again, cur­rent health safe­ty regu­la­ti­ons in place to con­trol the Corona/Covid 19 risk make it impos­si­ble to ope­ra­te this voya­ge and other ones. A small ship in remo­te are­as is not a good situa­ti­on the­se days.

The par­ti­ci­pan­ts will now be cont­ac­ted by the Geo­gra­phi­schen Rei­se­ge­sell­schaft.

With Anti­gua in Spits­ber­gen: won’t hap­pen in 2020 becau­se of the Coro­na virus.

This appli­es also to our hiking and pho­to­gra­phy trip in and around Pyra­mi­den (31 August – 07 Sep­tem­ber 2020). This will also be can­cel­led, the par­ti­ci­pan­ts will be cont­ac­ted soon.

Nor­mal­ly, on this site I wri­te and publish artic­les and blog posts about things that have actual­ly hap­pen­ed, and I try to keep it most­ly in unemo­tio­nal style. But the world isn’t nor­mal the­se days, so this article/blog/whatever is a bit dif­fe­rent.

It is about some­thing that does not hap­pen and it is latent­ly emo­tio­nal.

Yes­ter­day, on 09 July, we would have board­ed good old SV Anti­gua in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. About 30 pas­sen­gers, pro­ba­b­ly quite exci­ted, in good spi­rits and with high hopes and expec­ta­ti­ons. Ten crew: the Cap­tain (pro­ba­b­ly Robert), mates, deck­hand, gal­ley and ser­vice, three gui­des – Alex, Kris­ti­na and me. Ever­y­bo­dy had been loo­king for­ward to this trip for quite some time alre­a­dy, until the who­le thing fell vic­tim to the coro­na virus, as so much this weird year. 19 beau­tiful days in Spits­ber­gen – gone. Not just any kind of days. Spits­ber­gen under sail, that is always spe­cial, inten­se and rich with all sorts of expe­ri­en­ces. On every trip, we see and expe­ri­ence stuff whe­re I think “wow, how ama­zing is that …” and that is after almost 25 years of tra­vel­ling Spits­ber­gen.

Spits­ber­gen with Anti­gua: would have star­ted yes­ter­day (9 July).

Nobo­dy will ever know what we will actual­ly have missed this sum­mer on this trip and others that don’t hap­pen now. But of cour­se it is pos­si­ble to dream and guess a bit. Let’s try to take it a litt­le step up onto an infor­med level. As always, it starts with a look at wea­ther fore­cast and ice­chart:

Mari­ne wea­ther fore­cast for Satur­day (12 July).

Today (Fri­day), the­re would still have been a fair bit of wind on the west coast. May­be not gre­at for a first day on a ship, but it should be calm in Isfjord, albeit pos­si­bly a bit wet, at least during Fri­day night and Satur­day ear­ly mor­ning. I think we might have well spent our first day in the­re. The­re are so many fjords with an end­less num­ber of beau­tiful places the­re. Tem­pel­fjord, Bil­lefjord, Nord­fjord with Ekm­anfjord, Cora­hol­men and so on, Bohem­an­flya, … just to men­ti­on a few (click on the links for a bit of online tra­vel­ling). The list is end­less.

On Satur­day, the wind on the west coast is sup­po­sed to turn south. I guess then we might have left Isfjord to set sail and a nor­t­her­ly cour­se with fine sai­ling wind. The fore­cast indi­ca­tes calm wea­ther for a cou­ple of days next week in the north, and then it is just a won­derful world to explo­re.

Mari­ne wea­ther fore­cast for Sun­day (12 July).

And now a quick look at the ice chart, which is real­ly an inte­res­t­ing one now. The­re is still a lot of drift ice in the east and nor­the­ast and many of the fjords, espe­ci­al­ly on Nord­aus­t­land, are still fro­zen solid. As it looks now, this trip would not have been a cir­cum­na­vi­ga­ti­on. This is, in times of cli­ma­te chan­ge, not com­mon for a trip that starts near mid July, but obvious­ly not impos­si­ble. Of cour­se it would have been exci­ting just to go and check it out, but it is also inte­res­t­ing to keep che­cking the ice chart every once in a while during the next cou­ple of weeks and see what hap­pens.

Ice chart Spits­ber­gen as of 09 July (© Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te).

But then, have a good look at, say, Lief­defjord and Wood­fjord! Open – pro­ba­b­ly most­ly navigab­le, in other words – drift ice, with some lar­ger ice fields, such as the yel­low dot clo­se to Reins­dyr­flya, and solid (“fast”) ice in inner Wood­fjord! We could cer­tain­ly have spent a cou­ple of gre­at days the­re. And then on to Nord­aus­t­land and Hin­lo­pen. The com­bi­na­ti­on of drift ice, stun­ning sce­n­ery and a lot of wild­life, from guil­l­emots to wal­rus, polar bears and pro­ba­b­ly wha­les would most likely have made for some unfor­gettable expe­ri­en­ces.

Isfjord

Who knows what we might have done and seen the first day(s) in Isfjord? Just a few impres­si­ons from pre­vious years. Could have been some­thing like this. Or some­thing com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent.

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

For­lands­und

We spent quite a bit of time in For­lands­und last year, as tho­se who were the­re will remem­ber with no reg­rets 😉 all the For­lands­und pic­tures are from 2019.

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

Wood­fjord and Lief­defjord

Just a few pos­si­ble impres­si­ons as we might have met them now in Wood­fjord and Lief­defjord. And Spitsbergen’s north coast is, of cour­se, much more than “just” that. The­re is also the Raud­fjord, Wij­defjord, Sorg­fjord … oh, well …

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

A lot of “might have” and “would” and so on. It is curr­ent­ly not­hing but ima­gi­na­ti­on and dreams. Unseen, not expe­ri­en­ced, not lived. The 40 polar enthu­si­asts that should have met on a sai­ling ship to explo­re the far north, to share the excit­ment and fasci­na­ti­on, will never meet in this com­bi­na­ti­on. Sad.

So, fin­gers crossed that we will meet next year or in 2022 in Spits­ber­gen, or else­whe­re bet­ween the north pole and the south pole!

It is real­ly not a sur­pri­se, but now it is offi­ci­al: our Spits­ber­gen voya­ge with Anti­gua in July is can­cel­led for reasons that will hard­ly requi­re an expl­ana­ti­on. The par­ti­ci­pan­ts who are boo­ked on this voya­ge will be cont­ac­ted soo­nest by the Geo­gra­phi­schen Rei­se­ge­sell­schaft.

With Anti­gua in Spits­ber­gen: won’t hap­pen in July 2020.

I have to admit that this is a bit emo­tio­nal. The thought of all the arc­tic soul­food that is lost this year can bring more than just a bit of water to one’s eyes. Cer­tain­ly to mine, at least. This sum­mers’ first, ear­ly sea­son trip in Spits­ber­gen on Anti­gua would be hap­pe­ning right now. Still a lot of snow and ice up north. But in real life, Anti­gua is about as far away from Spits­ber­gen as most of you rea­ders will be. A few weeks ago, on the trip up from main­land Nor­way to Spits­ber­gen, we might have seen Bear Island as we haven’t seen it at all in recent years: with den­se ice packed all round the shores! We can only ima­gi­ne how good that might have been. Sad. I am sure that I can honest­ly think and wri­te that on behalf of all pas­sen­gers and crew.

Ice chart of south Spits­ber­gen, ear­ly May: ice around the south cape, Bear Island and on the east coast, Bell­sund fro­zen solid. How good would that have been …
Ice chart © Nor­we­gi­an Meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­te.

Bey­ond all the good expe­ri­ence that is now lost, you may ima­gi­ne that this is also a bit of a tough blow eco­no­mic­al­ly. In this con­text, I may men­ti­on that my Spits­ber­gen online shop has never been clo­sed and it will remain open and acces­si­ble at any time and you can find a lot of good stuff the­re to tra­vel the Arc­tic wit­hout lea­ving the sofa! Next to the famous Spits­ber­gen bible, the­re is the less famous, but may­be even more beau­tiful pho­to book with the aeri­al pho­tos or, with the drift­wood pic­tu­re frames and the kit­chen slats, a real pie­ce of Spits­ber­gen on the wall or the kit­chen table, respec­tively, to men­ti­on just a few.

Gene­ral­ly, tou­rism is start­ing up slow­ly again in Spits­ber­gen. Empha­si­ze “slow­ly”. But this, again, will hard­ly come as a sur­pri­se: so far, only tou­rists from main­land Nor­way can visit Spits­ber­gen. Danish tou­rists will be the next ones who will be allo­wed in from 15 June. The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment has announ­ced to make a state­ment regar­ding visi­tors from “near-by Euro­pean count­ries” until 20 July. So, stay tun­ed.

Any­way, ship-based tra­vel­ling over seve­ral days is so far excluded and it is announ­ced that it will take “more time” (wit­hout fur­ther spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on) until this kind of tra­vel­ling can take place again.