Sat
19 Feb
2022

The days are quick­ly get­ting lon­ger after the return of the sun. This is inde­ed an ama­zin­gly quick pro­cess. Just 2-3 days after the very first sun­ri­se of the year, the sun is alre­a­dy for seve­ral hours abo­ve the hori­zon.

The fact that we have a clear sky again after more than a week of clouds does, wit­hout a doubt, also con­tri­bu­te to the sub­jec­ti­ve part of this impres­si­on.

Time to get out and see a bit more of the sur­roun­dings. Some of you may know Eidem­buk­ta from the sai­ling ship tours in the sum­mer sea­son. This lar­ge bay is just a few kilo­me­t­res north of Farm­ham­na.

Ski­ing from Farm­ham­na to Eidem­buk­ta. Towards the sun 🙂 at least for a while.

Stay­ing out­side for some time is inde­ed a refres­hing expe­ri­ence, with tem­pe­ra­tures around -15 degrees (C) plus wind­chill. It is much, much less win­dy than in parts of NW Euope up here the­se days, but the­re is a pret­ty con­stant bree­ze blo­wing, which feels quite icy.

I sche­du­le the day in such a way that I make use of the sun­light as much as pos­si­ble, but the idea to see and pho­to­graph Farm­ham­na from a distance with the sun­set in the back­ground fails due to a bank of clouds. It doesn’t mat­ter. The­re is beau­ty all around me whe­re­ver I turn my eyes. The wide, open, snow-cover­ed land with soft colours ran­ging from red through pink to blue, the drift snow being blown over the low hills. The lar­ge and beau­tiful­ly cur­ved coast­li­ne of Eidem­buk­ta. I fol­low the beach for a bit wit­hout fin­ding a sin­gle pie­ce of drift­wood, to my sur­pri­se. A litt­le can­yon sculp­tu­red by the melt­wa­ter river of Venern­breen, one of the near­by gla­ciers. I fol­low the can­yon for a bit, kee­ping a good eye on the cor­nices, but whe­re­ver they look sca­ry, the­re is enough space to stay away from them.

Can­yon in Eidem­buk­ta.

I see some lonely reinde­er on the way back. The only living crea­tures out here today, apart from a glau­cous gull and a few nor­t­hern ful­mars.

I try to find a shel­te­red place for a lunch break, but my spot under a litt­le rock cliff turns out to be the win­diest and col­dest place any­whe­re around. I don’t stay long and rather return to the hut with the cozy wood-bur­ning sto­ve.

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

Wed
16 Feb
2022

In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, 8 March is the day to cele­bra­te the return of the sun, main­ly becau­se the place is sur­roun­ded by moun­ta­ins, espe­ci­al­ly to the south.

Not so here in Farm­ham­na 🙂 so we had the plea­su­re to see and cele­bra­te the sun alre­a­dy today, 16 Febru­ary. It is the first sun­ri­se after 112 days, the last one befo­re had been on 25 Octo­ber. As far as I am con­cer­ned, I have been here now for not even 3 weeks and still, it is quite spe­cial to see the sun again. Let alo­ne for Rico, who hasn’t seen the sun for months!

Clear view to the south: no pro­blem in Farm­ham­na.

So we made sure we were the­re well in time, up on the “tele­pho­ne hill”, and we also made sure we were well equip­ped with came­ras, some stan­ding on legs, ano­ther one with wings – the who­le lot.

“Sun fes­ti­val” in Farm­ham­na. It wasn’t real­ly a mass gathe­ring.

And we were lucky, becau­se during the mor­ning the sky had been com­ple­te­ly clou­dy. But just in time we got a low stri­pe of sky clear enough bet­ween the clouds and the hori­zon in the south, whe­re the oran­ge glow beca­me brigh­ter and brigh­ter, and final­ly, the­re she was, the sun – what a view, what a moment!

The first sun­ri­se after 112 days.

Later in the after­noon, the clouds cover­ed the who­le sky again. Talk of luck!

If you want to read a bit more about mid­night sun and polar night, click here.

And here, some more impres­si­ons about this beau­tiful day in Spits­ber­gen.

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

Fri
11 Feb
2022

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.

Wed
2 Feb
2022

Arri­ved!

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 … 🙂