I have returned to Longyearbyen after five weeks in Farmhamna. Back to civilisation – well, in a wider sense. Longyearbyen, anyway. And in time for the sun festival, the second one this year for me. We had one in Farmhamna already on 16 February 🙂
The time I spent in Farmhamna was plainly wonderful. Rich and full in experiences and impressions. Stunning and interesting. A lot of food for an arctic-hungry soul and for a similarly minded camera.
But this chapter is over now for me. I have been a little lazy in Farmhamna concerning writing here, I spent most of the time there in the “here and now”. I have to get back to that. But not now.
Farmhamna is not the end of the world, but not far from it either. Getting there and away is not just done easily and quickly, as these pictures may illustrate:
Surf can always make life difficult on the west coast (and elsewhere) …
So far, this year seems to bring a lot of ice to the “cold coast” (Svalbard), at least in relation to recent standards. There is quite a bit of ice even on the west coast right now, as the ice chart shows. Too often, there has been hardly any ice at this time of year in recent years.
… and ice isn’t an unknown phenomenon in Spitsbergen either.
Also in the Farmhamna area, there has been quite a lot of ice in recent weeks. At times, the little peninsula was completely blocked from all directions, and other bays in the area were also filled with ice. Not necessarily thick and solid, but enough to keep a boat from getting there.
This is what the bay Farmhamna has been like the last couple of weeks.
The combination of surf on one side of the peninsula and ice on the other side added some extra excitement (and sweat) to the exchange operation, where I left Farmhamna and Rico got his family back. Finally it worked. The two Henningsens of Hennningsen Transport and Guiding in Longyearbyen made it possible with their little but strong ship Farm (there is indeed a relationship between the place and the boat, as the name suggests) and some good Zodiac driving to shuttle people and cargo in and out in challenging conditions.
Zodiac operation in icy waters.
On board, there was a small group of people, including Kristina, who were there for the rare opportunity of a visit to Farmhamna. This did unfortunately not work out, given the conditions. Instead, they got a fair bit of rock’n’roll on the boat at times. In the end, we were happy that we could make the key part of the operation work. Don’t ever take anything for granted on and around these islands!