Sat
23 Sep
2023

Dan­s­køya offe­red the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a good walk. It was not the lon­gest one in the world, but the deep snow still deman­ded a good bit of ener­gy. Smee­ren­burg­fjord show­ed off with its ama­zing sce­n­ery, and Sep­tem­ber show­ed off with its ama­zing light.

The sai­ling wind that we had been hoping for in the after­noon did not show off. It did not exist at all. So it was motor all the way to Kross­fjord, were we made a litt­le evening visit to the old wea­ther sta­ti­on that was ope­ra­ted from 1912 to 1914.

Pho­to gal­lery – Dan­s­køya & Ebelt­oft­ham­na

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

Fri
22 Sep
2023

On to the wes­tern north coast it was time to do some miles. A mor­ning in Lief­defjord. Sce­n­ery: gre­at. Wea­ther and light: gre­at. Stun­ning.

Of cour­se we could easi­ly have spent the who­le day the­re, or two or three … but we were deter­mi­ned to have a look at the legen­da­ry island of Mof­fen. Rather, to go ashore the­re, to be more pre­cise. And so we did in the evening. Also here: stun­ning!

Pho­to gal­lery: Lief­defjord & Mof­fen – 19th Sep­tem­ber 2023

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

Mon
18 Sep
2023

A day on the second-lar­gest island of Sval­bard. Win­ter seems to have the place under con­trol, ever­y­thing is cover­ed by snow, lakes and lagoons are fro­zen here in inner Murch­ison­fjord (pho­tos here). Again we were lucky and had the wea­ther on our side, with kind of gol­den, hea­vy ear­ly win­ter light over the land­scape.

Nord­aus­t­land – Murch­ison­fjord – Snaddvi­ka & Kinn­vi­ka

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In Kinn­vi­ka, we had to let a snow show­er pass through befo­re we went and explo­red the old sta­ti­on and its sur­roun­dings.

Sun
17 Sep
2023

The polar bear sight­ing yes­ter­day on Wahl­ber­gøya was so good that we had ano­ther look this mor­ning, try­ing to make it even bet­ter. And it work­ed per­fect­ly well, it could not have been bet­ter.

Mean­while, win­ter has arri­ved. Snow is ever­y­whe­re, on the ground and in the air. The­re was actual­ly so much snow in the air that we had to pick a good moment for a walk on Smit­tøya to have the mini­mum visi­bi­li­ty that we real­ly need to be able to see what is going on around us.

Gal­lery – Hin­lo­pen Strait – Wahl­ber­gøya – Smit­tøya & Alkef­jel­let – 17. Sep­tem­ber 2023

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The­re was not much going on any­mo­re at Alkef­jel­let (more Pho­tos here), at least in terms of Brünich’s guil­l­emots. They have all left. But the rocks are stun­ning also wit­hout the guil­l­emots, and the gulls are still the­re and they put on quite a show for us.

Sat
16 Sep
2023

Von Otterøya is cover­ed with fresh snow all the way down to the shore­li­ne, hence the arc­tic land appears in a total­ly dif­fe­rent light. Dif­fe­rent walks and hikes take us up the hills and along the shore­li­nes. A distant polar bear makes us return a bit ear­lier. No dra­ma whatsoe­ver, but bet­ter safe than sor­ry.

Later, we find ano­ther polar bear wal­king around on Wahl­ber­gøya. A beau­tiful sight­ing 🙂

Gal­lery – Hin­lo­pen Strait: Von Otterøya & Wahl­ber­gøya – 16 Sep­tem­ber 2023

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

Fri
15 Sep
2023

It was quite late last night when we rea­ched Kie­per­tøya and drop­ped the anchor the­re. And belie­ve it or not, but the­re was no fog, no polar bear. Not­hing that could keep us from going ashore and having a good look around on the island. And the­re is so much of inte­rest. And a bunch of bags pla­s­tic less on the beach now. And a sad sto­ry. More about that on the Kie­per­tøya pano page.

Later we sai­led (lite­ral­ly, at least to begin with) to Brås­vell­breen. More than 8000 squa­re kilo­me­t­res of ice ter­mi­na­ting in a see­mingly end­less cal­ving front.

Gal­lery – Kie­per­tøya & Brås­vell­breen – 15 Sep­tem­ber 2023

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

Thu
14 Sep
2023

Negri­b­reen is among­st the lar­gest gla­ciers of the main island of Spits­ber­gen. Ear­lier I would have said the lar­gest gla­cier of the main island, but I am not so sure any­mo­re.

End­less amounts of ice in all shapes and colours, some ice­bergs with other­world­ly beau­tiful blue colours. A gla­cier front kilo­me­t­res long. A mons­trous cal­ving … extre­me­ly impres­si­ve, extre­me­ly beau­tiful.

The chan­ges that are appa­rent here are less beau­tiful. The eas­tern part, which used to be a stun­ning and very much ali­ve gla­cier front just a cou­ple of years ago, has part­ly dis­ap­peared, and the part that is still the­re is now redu­ced to a huge tabu­lar pie­ce of ice that is dead now, wit­hout a con­nec­tion to the acti­ve part of the gla­cier. It will just dis­ap­pear within a few years. In other words, the eas­tern part of Negri­b­reen has seen an almost com­ple­te col­lap­se, and the once so huge gla­cier is, well, still huge, but in com­pa­ri­son to its past, a mere shadow of its pre­vious size.

Gal­lery – Storfjord: Negri­b­reen & Straums­land – 14 Sep­tem­ber 2023

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Later, we went to Heley­sund and Straums­land. A beau­tiful part of Spits­ber­gen, with tun­dra, lakes, wet­lands, basalt land­scapes, Spits­ber­gen reinde­er, arc­tic foxes and beau­tiful views of Heley­sund, Küken­thaløya and Barent­søya.

Wed
13 Sep
2023

After a very rela­xed roun­ding of the south cape we went to one of the places whe­re the con­se­quen­ces of cli­ma­te chan­ge are most dra­ma­tic: Ham­berg­buk­ta with the gla­cier Ham­berg­breen. Situa­ted on Spitsbergen’s east coast oppo­si­te Horn­sund, it is now just a few kilo­me­t­res of gla­cier ice left bet­ween the­se two fjords. It won’t take fore­ver until the­re is a chan­nel bet­ween them, tur­ning Sør­kapp Land into a huge Sør­kapp island.

But it will still take some time. Curr­ent­ly, Ham­berg­breen is still a huge and very impres­si­ve gla­cier.

Gal­lery – Storfjord – Ham­berg­breen & Bol­tod­den – 13 Sep­tem­ber 2023

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Later we mana­ged a landing at Bol­tod­den, with the famous dino­saur foot­prints. An ama­zing place. It is always gre­at when a landing the­re is pos­si­ble.

Tue
12 Sep
2023

We have got time, we have got wea­ther of all sorts, so we’ll attempt a cir­cum­na­vi­ga­ti­on of Spits­ber­gen – it is quite some years ago that we did that the last time in Sep­tem­ber. So let’s go for it. The first long leg of our cir­cum­na­vi­ga­ti­on took us during the night far down south. During the mor­ning we rea­ched Dunøya­ne and had sui­ta­ble con­di­ti­ons for a landing, so of cour­se we went for it. Later we went into Horn­sund, all the way into Sama­rin­vå­gen, whe­re we had a fabu­lous pan­ora­ma from a litt­le hill.

Gal­lery – Dunøya­ne & Horn­sund – 12 Sep­tem­ber 2013

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

Mon
11 Sep
2023

Once again we sail out into the arc­tic autumn, “Spits­ber­gen under sail” 2023 with good old Anti­gua. It was a beau­tiful start, sai­ling sil­ent­ly across Isfjord.

The anchor fell at Kapp Wijk, whe­re we also spent the first mor­ning. Beau­tiful Sep­tem­ber light, beau­tiful sce­n­ery, colourful tun­dra, fri­end­ly reinde­er, and as we just wan­ted to return to the ship, a lar­ge pod of Belugas swam along the shore right next to us! It must have been at least 70-80, pos­si­bly more. Unfor­gettable.

In the after­noon, we made a visit to the gre­at gla­cier Sveab­reen. A gre­at first day!

Gal­lery – Isfjord: Kapp Wijk & Sveab­reen

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

Fri
8 Sep
2023

The sum­mer is pret­ty much over, and the tran­si­ti­on peri­od, the equi­va­lent of the autumn of lower lati­tu­des, can be beau­tiful – but it can also be grey and wet. Some­ti­mes ever­y­thing at the same time, grey, wet – and beau­tiful. But it can be hard for tho­se who love to get out and do some­thing exci­ting out the­re in natu­re. For this day, we had to be con­tent with a litt­le walk in Ny-Åle­sund and a late after­noon beach walk at Poo­le­pyn­ten on Prins Karls For­land. Well, we were ashore two times, the­re is litt­le to com­plaint about! And it doesn’t make any­thing bet­ter any­way. It does not make sen­se to argue with natu­re. We rather lis­ten to what she tells us and go along with it.

And on our final full day we got a beau­tiful day in Isfjord. Even some sun­ny views on the beau­tiful gla­ciers and moun­ta­ins in Trygg­ham­na and at Bore­breen. A gre­at good­bye for this time – time was fly­ing again, and this trip, ful­ly packed with beau­ty and good expe­ri­en­ces and impres­si­ons, is sud­den­ly over. What a trip! A big thanks to skip­per and ship owner Mario and his good crew. Mean­der was a beau­tiful, good, safe home for us (“the ship didn’t sink”, as someone put it so nice­ly during the warm words of the last evening 😄 true inde­ed). Big thanks to all who were on board and con­tri­bu­ted to the good expe­ri­ence!

Pho­to gal­lery – For­lands­und & Isfjord

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

Wed
6 Sep
2023

The mor­ning found us in Kross­fjord – at least accor­ding to modern navi­ga­tio­nal methods. Views out­side didn’t reve­al much about our whe­re­a­bouts. Fog down to sea level. In the end, we mana­ged to find a sui­ta­ble place for at least a short landing in Ebelt­oft­ham­na to have a look at the remains of the Ger­man wea­ther sta­ti­on of 1912-14.

After a brief visit to Fjor­ten­de Juli­breen, we deci­ded Ny-Åle­sund was the best place to be in this kind of wea­ther, fog and, in the after­noon, also rain.

Pho­to gal­lery – Kross­fjord & Kongsfjord

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Tue
5 Sep
2023

It was time to move west again. A night of sai­ling took us into Wood­fjord. A won­derful sky with smooth, clear light abo­ve the wide, beau­tiful tun­dra and land­scape of Reins­dyr­flya and sur­roun­ding islands near Wors­leyne­set.

Later we went to Mus­ham­na, from the trap­per huts to the per­fect mir­ror images of land­scape in the shel­te­red lagoon.

Pho­to gal­lery – Wood­fjord: Wors­leyne­set & Mus­ham­na

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

Mon
4 Sep
2023

Ano­ther lucky wea­ther day! The wea­ther win­dow ope­ned up a litt­le bit more again, so we took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ven­ture up north to Sjuøya­ne, the nor­t­her­most islands of Sval­bard. And yet again, talk of a hap­py com­bi­na­ti­on of right place and right time. A gol­den mor­ning on Phippsøya. And then under sail to Ros­søya, the very nor­t­hern­most island (if you want to call it an island) in this part of the Arc­tic.

Pho­to gal­lery – Sjuøya­ne: Phippsøya & Ros­søya

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

Mon
4 Sep
2023

After the grey wea­ther of the last cou­ple of days it was a gre­at delight to see the sun and blue sky again: we got some gol­den days, two of which we spent in Wahl­enberg­fjord, on the west side of Nord­aus­t­land, or rather, in the heart of this magi­cal island (so this blog ent­ry is about two days. I have to catch up a litt­le bit).

So, gol­den days. Impec­ca­ble wea­ther. Haun­tingly beau­tiful land­scape. An unfor­gettable evening on an unknown beach and a long hike in the tun­dra and over the hills in inner­most Wahl­enberg­fjord, with rare views over a very silent like and wide ice caps.

Pho­to gal­lery – Wahl­enberg­fjord

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