With Arc­ti­ca II in Bil­lefjord

Mon
7 Aug
2023

Yes­ter­day we star­ted in Lon­gye­ar­by­en with Arc­ti­ca II. And now we have just about 30 hours behind us, but it feels alre­a­dy like 3 days.

After a look at the wea­ther fore­cast my expec­ta­ti­ons regar­ding this first had been slight­ly limi­t­ed, but as it tur­ned out it was a good decis­i­on to stay in Bil­lefjord. After a visit to the migh­ty Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen – still an impres­si­ve gla­cier, despi­te of its dra­ma­tic retre­at – we found our first polar bear just after the first break­fast on board. And what a beau­tiful sight­ing it was!

The first hike took us up a morai­ne and then along a river whe­re we found coal from the Car­bo­ni­fe­rous (near 300 mil­li­on years old). Much older than the stuff in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, Barents­burg and so on. We finis­hed the hike in the old coal pro­s­pec­ting “sett­le­ment” (well, four huts) Bruce­by­en.

Sai­ling out of Bil­lefjor­den took quite some time. Too many wha­les 🙂

We finis­hed this first day – as far as acti­vi­ties out­side were con­cer­ned – at Svenske­hu­set. An ama­zing place with some rather dra­ma­tic histo­ry.

Gal­lery – In Bil­lefjord

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

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