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HomeArctic blog: Jan Mayen, Spitsbergen → This year’s final Spits­ber­gen sai­ling blog

This year’s final Spits­ber­gen sai­ling blog

The last day of the voya­ge, the last day “Spits­ber­gen under sail” in 2024. In Ekm­anfjord and Dick­son­fjord. We star­ted at Flin­thol­men, a perl of arc­tic natu­re and sce­n­ery.

Then we crui­sed Dick­son­fjord. The­re was this gut fee­ling … and yes, we did see polar bears, during the very last miles of the trip! What a luck, ever­y­bo­dy was so hap­py. They were pret­ty far away, no frame-fil­ling pho­tos, but that didn’t mat­ter, it was real­ly about the expe­ri­ence of having seen them in the wild. The real thing. The distance was a good 500 m, and this is, by the way, the distance requi­red by law from 2025 during spring (until end of June; from July it’s 300 m and all this is valid within Svalbard’s 12 mile zone).

A few hours later we were back in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, and thus this beau­tiful trip came to an end. It was fare­well and good­bye, on various levels. This was my very last trip with good old Anti­gua in Spits­ber­gen, after more than 30 sin­ce 2010. We went many miles tog­e­ther and the part of this voya­ge that hap­pens in Spits­ber­gen waters is over now. But we’ll meet again, quite soon actual­ly, in a few weeks in north Nor­way 🙂

And it was my very last Spits­ber­gen voya­ge under the cur­rent legal regime. A lot will chan­ge next year (more infor­ma­ti­on here). Bey­ond the requi­red distances from polar bears (see abo­ve), we won’t be able to go ashore any­mo­re as free­ly as we can so far. We will still be able to do good and inte­res­t­ing voy­a­ges from 2025, but they will be dif­fe­rent. May­be even bet­ter in cer­tain ways. Less pres­su­re to sail to remo­te are­as, less miles, more time to go hiking etc. Not a bad thing in its­elf. I would very much pre­fer it to be a mat­ter of my own choice, though (and not – sor­ry – the choice of some idi­ots far away, the­re is sim­ply no exper­ti­se in the­se new laws, just office table bull­shit. Sor­ry, I get car­ri­ed away, but it is tuff stuff).

So Sval­bard life will con­ti­nue also next year and bey­ond as far as we can tell now, but it will be dif­fe­rent. A lot will be lost espe­ci­al­ly for tho­se who have been around for a while, tho­se who know the place. We have done well on this trip, visi­ting places like Fjer­de­breen on the west coast, Idun­nes­et in Wahl­enberg­fjord, Zei­pe­lod­den in Pal­an­der­buk­ta and Mof­fen. All of them will not be acces­si­ble any­mo­re from 2025 – unless you come on a pri­va­te trip. Which is ridi­cu­lous, of cour­se; who comes to such remo­te places on a pri­va­te trip?

I am pri­vi­le­ged to have been around here, and I am gra­teful for that.

Thank you, Anti­gua! Thank you for being such a gre­at, such an enjoya­ble part of this jour­ney! The ship, the crew that made it all pos­si­ble, ever­y­bo­dy who was part of it and made it so enjoya­ble. Thank you for now, all the best and see you again, any­whe­re bet­ween the poles!

Pho­to gal­lery Isfjord: Ekm­anfjord & Dick­son­fjord – 22nd Sep­tem­ber 2024

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

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last modification: 2024-09-24 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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