North­bound

Sun
30 Jan
2022

The light is about to return to high lati­tu­des in the north, and I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fol­low. Or, actual­ly, to be a bit ahead of it.

Just in case anyo­ne wants to know: tra­vel­ling from Ger­ma­ny to Nor­way and fur­ther to Lon­gye­ar­by­en was remar­kab­ly easy. Somehow I expec­ted some kind of trou­ble, I was cer­tain­ly men­tal­ly pre­pared for it. As long as you have regis­tered your plan­ned ent­ry to Nor­way befo­re you actual­ly come and you are tes­ted nega­ti­ve direct­ly after arri­val and again within 24 hours befo­re depar­tu­re to Lon­gye­ar­by­en, not­hing should keep things from going smooth­ly (it may depend a bit on whe­re you come from – this is by no means legal advice, it is just recent expe­ri­ence). If the time bet­ween arri­val in Oslo and depar­tu­re to Lon­gye­ar­by­en is shorter than 24 hours, then one test will do. A lot depends obvious­ly on the amount of traf­fic in the air­port.

Don’t ask me how this may chan­ge in the future. Things are likely to chan­ge also in Nor­way soo­ner rather than later. Gene­ral­ly spea­king, the­re is talk about making things easier. What and for whom, I don’t know.

Ice in the har­bour of Long­sye­ar­by­en (små­båt­hav­na, “small boat har­bour”)

My stay in Lon­gye­ar­by­en was short and hec­tic this time. Shorter and more hec­tic than plan­ned. Ori­gi­nal­ly, the idea was to have a cou­ple of days here befo­re I would car­ry on, but this didn’t hap­pen. The boat trip to the place that I was going to was moved to the next rather ear­ly mor­ning after my arri­val. The­re wasn’t much time to put the feet on the table, as you may well guess.

The litt­le but stur­dy MS Farm of Hen­nigsen, the only boat on the water here at this – from a sailor’s point of view – ungod­ly time of year. It was a trip of 6-7 hours, and the chall­enge star­ted alre­a­dy in the har­bour, which was kinf of half fro­zen. Ice on the water, a fine nor­t­hern light on the sky. A good way to start a new adven­ture.

With MS Farm across Isfjord during the polar night.

The­re are alre­a­dy seve­ral hours of day­light around noon, and we mana­ged to arri­ve at our desti­na­ti­on still with some light. Farm­ham­na on the west coast. Here, I will help Rico for a cou­ple of weeks. He and his part­ner Karo­li­ne own this beau­tiful trap­per sta­ti­on, and here they do theirs to keep the tra­di­ti­on of over­win­te­ring hun­ting ali­ve, which has a histo­ry span­ning cen­tu­ries here in Spits­ber­gen.

Farm­ham­na: arri­ved hap­pi­ly – arri­ved and hap­py.

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

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