Farmhamna is a little hunting station on the west coast of Spitsbergen in Forlandsund, north of Isfjord. A wide-open, weather-beaten lowland; often, it is windy on this rather exposed coastline.
You can find a lot of small bay and beaches, some well known and others well hidden, behind small islets, rocks and peninsulas. We have explored and enjoyed many of them during our summer sailing ship trips. Also now, in the polar night, they can be useful; getting here and away is anything but straightforward, and the little bit of traffic there is is usually by boat. Over land, the area is pretty inaccessible.
Farmhamna.
This photo gives an impression of Farmhamna at this time, end of January/early February. Around noon, the brightest time of the day.
The light of the north!
Farmhamna: mid-day twilight.
And here an impression of the outer coast of Farmhamna, looking to the south, around mid-day. There is currently no more than twilight, we won’t see the sun before 16 February at the earliest. Depending on the weather, it may well be later. Or, actually, even a little bit earlier … we’ll see.
In any case, it is still two weeks away. But we have already got several hours of twilight, when the sun travels between 5 and 7 degrees below the horizon, producing the most beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red on the southern sky and all sorts of blue elsewhere.
And there is, as you may expect, sometimes a totally different kind of light shining in the evening. Much weaker than the sun, but infinitely beautiful.
The light of the north!
Northern light above Farmhamna.
A bit weak, but a beautiful start on my very first evening here!
Yes, there may be the odd northern light photo coming up here the next weeks … 🙂