Mon
2 May
2022

Bear Island! It took us a while to get here, con­side­ring the con­stant nor­t­hern winds that we have had in quite a while now.

But on Sun­day evening we could see the island from a distance of more than 40 nau­ti­cal miles!

During the night we found out that lar­ge parts of the island are actual­ly sur­roun­ded by ice, which is a pret­ty rare event the­se days. The bay of Sør­ham­na whe­re we ori­gi­nal­ly inten­ded to anchor was blo­cked by ice, so this was not an opti­on and we ended up ancho­ring at the oppo­si­te and of Bear Island, near the nor­thwes­tern cor­ner.

The­re, we were able to get out with the ding­hy. It was the only place around the who­le island whe­re the rather dif­fi­cult com­bi­na­ti­on of swell, wind and ice allo­wed small boat ope­ra­ti­ons at all. It tur­ned out to be a litt­le crui­se that included a short landing on a beach – for sure not the lon­gest excur­si­on ever on this island, but wit­hout any doubt sweet, with the impres­si­ve rocky coast­li­ne part­ly cover­ed in ice, glit­te­ring in the sun! Stun­ning!

Later we con­tin­ued towards Spits­ber­gen, but the drift ice is fur­ther west than expec­ted and it keeps for­cing extra miles on us.