Yes, it is mid Octo­ber and the sum­mer has left Spits­ber­gen weeks ago alre­a­dy. Most migra­ting birds have gone their way, and so did SV Mean­der on Mon­day. Safe sai­ling! See you again, up here next year at the latest, pos­si­ble alre­a­dy in Novem­ber in Nor­way.

SV Mean­der lea­ving Lon­gye­ar­by­en on Mon­day.

At the time of wri­ting (Wed­ne­say), it was 3 degrees abo­ve free­zing, far war­mer than it usual­ly is in Octo­ber. Nevert­hel­ess: the arc­tic win­ter is just around the cor­ner. The polar night will start in just 11 days (last sun­ri­se in Lon­gye­ar­by­en: 25 Octo­ber). The­re is no water run­ning in the rivers any­mo­re. Cold and snow will come soon.

The river in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, 15 Okto­ber.

For many in Lon­gye­ar­by­en (inclu­ding this aut­hor), the­re is a calm time coming up right now. The Dark Sea­son Blues­fes­ti­val will hap­pen in late Octo­ber as usu­al, and the­re are always some smal­ler events like public pre­sen­ta­ti­ons and others. For me, the­re is a lot of office work after a long sum­mer of sai­ling the coasts of Sval­bard. Bes­i­des the rather bor­ing stuff inclu­ding book­kee­ping and so on, the­re are a lot of pho­tos to be sor­ted – and used, for editing tri­plogs which are in the making tog­e­ther with their asso­cia­ted pages on this web­site with ple­nty of pho­to gal­le­ries. They are well worth having a look (start here for the over­view), it was a gre­at sea­son. Recent­ly I finis­hed and published the tri­plogs of the trips with Arc­ti­ca II in August and Mean­der in late August/early Sep­tem­ber. Anti­gua in Sep­tem­ber will be coming up soon.