Now I have already been here in Farmhamna on Spitsbergen’s west coast for a while and some are wondering how things are up here, so far north in the polar night. Well, indeed, when I am travelling the same area under sail during the summer, my travel blog updates are a bit more regular. But the days are not only beautiful but also usually well filled with work and other activities and the meaning of life in such a place is probably not to spend every minute possible on the computer, is it? 🙂
Farmhamna: Trapper station on Spitsbergen’s west coast.
I will write more here later, but to start with, I thought that I should introduce this beautiful and unusual place, so I have created a dedicated Farmhamna page (click here to open). It has the 360 degree panoramas that you may know from similar pages in that section of this website, but also two photo galleries with images from both summer and winter, the latter ones also giving some idea of what Rico, I and the 7 doggies are doing here these days.
The damage that occurred to one of the two communication cables that connect Spitsbergen to north Norway a few weeks ago attracted a lot of public attention (click here for more information). The case is by no means settled, but the owner of the cable, Space Norway, and the responsible police agency of Troms in north Norway have been in the area and were able to gather first data with an underwater robot.
According to NRK, the police told Norwegian media that human action appears to be likely as the cause for the damage. Natural influences seem less likely now.
Making a phone call in the settlements of Spitsbergen is done in a more modern fashion than pictured here. And it’s not just about phone calls.
But almost everything depends on the deep sea data cables to the mainland.
Nothing was revealed about the nature of the damage or even possible responsible people or groups; it was only said that there are so far no suspects. It is also not yet publically know in which depth the damage occurred. The cable section in question is about 100 km long and leads from the relatively shallow shelf on the west coast of Spitsbergen to deep sea areas.
It is actually not the 2 cm strong cable itself that is damaged but its power supply.
Repair works are scheduled later this year, in spring and/or summer.