Wed
4 Sep
2024

It was a bit of a bum­py start into the day, with a pret­ty strong bree­ze blo­wing through Free­man­sund. We deci­ded to stay on the east side of Edgeøya today. Good thing.

The­re, we had the migh­ty Ston­ebreen – a uni­que spe­ci­men of a gla­cier! Edgeøy­jø­ku­len is an ice cap of a good 1300 squa­re kilo­me­t­res, and on its eas­tern side it just flows out into the sea, on a coas­tal stretch as long as 25 kilo­me­t­res. The actu­al gla­cier front is much lon­ger. We were lucky enough to get clo­se to that impres­si­ve bit of land­scape in suns­hi­ne ❄️☀️😎

This was fol­lo­wed by a scenic pas­sa­ge of the east coast of Edgeøya and final­ly a litt­le evening landing on Halv­må­neøya, at the famous trap­per hut of Bjør­ne­borg – very atmo­sphe­ric, not the least due to some fog banks and the sad call of seve­ral red throa­ted divers on some ponds in the vici­ni­ty.

Pho­to gal­lery – Edgeøya: Ston­ebreen, Halv­må­neøya. 03rd Sep­tem­ber 2024

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

Tue
3 Sep
2024

What’s bet­ter than a gol­den day in Hin­lo­pen Strait? I can’t think of much. We ven­tu­red deep into Nordaustland’s fjords, into Pal­an­der­buk­ta, whe­re we were kind­ly gree­ted by some hump­back wha­les 🐳😀 and of cour­se the bar­ren polar desert land­scape and the huge ice caps that are so cha­rac­te­ristic for Nord­aus­t­land.

The evening brought a sun­ri­se that we enjoy­ed from a low hill on Von Otterøya.

Pho­to gal­lery – Hin­lo­pen Strait: Pal­an­der­buk­ta, Van Otterøya. 02nd Sep­tem­ber 2024

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

Sun
1 Sep
2024

We visi­ted Andøya­ne during the mor­ning, a litt­le para­di­se of arc­tic natu­re in Lief­defjord. Red rocks, green tun­dra, blue sky, screa­ming arc­tic terns and the sad call of the red-throa­ted diver.

In Wood­fjord, we saw seve­ral polar bears. A mother and her cub had obvious­ly found some­thing to feed on – we couldn’t quite make out what it was – and a loner wat­ched from a save distance.

The famous “Rit­ter hut” at Gråhu­ken was the cul­tu­ral high­light of ano­ther love­ly day.

Pho­to gal­lery – Lief­defjord & Wood­fjord: Andøya­ne, Gråhu­ken, 01st sep­tem­ber 2024

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

Sun
1 Sep
2024

The calm night ancho­red in Raud­fjord and some sun­rays last night and in the ear­ly mor­ning were a good thing. We spent the mor­ning in the beau­tiful bay of Hamil­ton­buk­ta.

In the after­noon it was time to stretch legs a lit­te bit, and so we did during a hike across Buchan­an­hal­vøya in inner Raud­fjord. Just in time befo­re it star­ted rai­ning again.

Pho­to gal­lery – Raud­fjord: Hamil­ton­buk­ta, Buchan­an­hal­vøya, 31st August 2024

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

Sat
31 Aug
2024

After a slight­ly bum­py night we rea­ched the nor­thwest cor­ner of Spits­ber­gen. We approa­ched this clas­si­cal area in a clas­si­cal way, with a mor­ning in Vir­go­ham­na on Dan­s­køya, an after­noon in Smee­ren­burg on Ams­ter­damøya and later a crui­se in the magni­fi­cent Fuglefjord. Again, the wea­ther fore­cast didn’t lea­ve us with much to expect, but again, we hap­pen­ed to be in the right places at the right time. Remar­kab­le.

Pho­to gal­lery: Nor­thwest Spits­ber­gen: Vir­go­ham­na, Smee­ren­burg, Fuglefjord, 30th August 2024

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

Fri
30 Aug
2024

The wind at the west coast had taken a break which we used to steam nor­thwards into Kongsfjord. The wea­ther fore­cast didn’t look gre­at, but as so many times befo­re this sum­mer we hap­pen­ed to be at the right places in the right time, so we could enjoy a gre­at day, start­ing on Mid­thol­men in Lové­nøya­ne and later in Ny-Åle­sund. Almost wit­hout get­ting wet 🙂.

Pho­to gal­lery – Kongsfjord: Mid­thol­men & Ny-Åle­sund, 29th August 2024

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

Wed
28 Aug
2024

Having been at Tunab­reen in inner­most Tem­pel­fjord last night, we spent the night ancho­red in Bjo­na­ham­na and that’s also whe­re we star­ted the day. A love­ly place, beau­tiful and inte­res­t­ing even in rather grey and win­dy wea­ther con­di­ti­ons.

Later, we saw Belugas (white wha­les) in Bil­lefjord and enjoy­ed the sce­n­ery at the huge (and huge­ly retrea­ted) gla­cier Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen. The day was com­ple­ted with an evening walk in Skans­buk­ta.

Pho­to gal­lery: Tem­pel­fjord & Bil­lefjord, 27th august 2024

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

Tue
27 Aug
2024

“Life is hel­lo and good­bye until we meet again”. John Len­non, I think. We just said “thank you and good­bye” to Arc­ti­ca II, and here we go again. Hel­lo, Mean­der! Life is going fast in the arc­tic sum­mer.

We spent the first day in Isfjord, start­ing with a crui­se into beau­tiful Tem­pel­fjord and to Tunab­reen. Here are some impres­si­ons from this first evening.

Pho­to gal­lery: Lon­gye­ar­by­en-Tem­pel­fjord, 26th August 2024

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

Tue
27 Aug
2024

We had still quite a few miles to go, so this very last full day of the trip was a day at sea. We wat­ched the land­scape of Van Mijenfjord pas­sing by, and some were rocked to sleep on the pas­sa­ged north to Isfjord. Not far from Kapp Lin­né we were gree­ted by a polar bear, and if you wan­ted some­thing fresh on the pla­te on the final evening of the voya­ge, you had to use the fishing rod. So we did.

So we finis­hed a voya­ge that alre­a­dy now appears pret­ty monu­men­tal in my memo­ry. Huge thanks to ever­y­bo­dy who has con­tri­bu­ted to the­se won­derful days, but also to the gre­at litt­le ship Arc­ti­ca II. This was the last voya­ge of this kind, after more than 10 years. 18 days with a focus on the remo­te parts of Sval­bard, that won’t hap­pen again, at least not in the fore­seeable future, and it is uncer­tain when and whe­re I may ever see Arc­ti­ca II again. The future might see a new owner (let me know if you have some hundred thousand Euros that you don’t need).

Thank you so very much for 10 unbe­lie­va­ble voy­a­ges, Arc­ti­ca II! All the best, to you and the peo­p­le behind you, owner Hein­rich and the skip­pers that have been with us through all the­se years: Hein­rich, Stein, Peter and Pål! All the best, see you again, hop­eful­ly soon!

Pho­to gal­lery: Isfjord – 23rd August 2024

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

Fri
23 Aug
2024

What can one do – the time had come to lea­ve the wild eas­tern part of Sval­bard behind and get the pas­sa­ge around Sør­kapp (south cape) to the west coast done. Time and wea­ther were both spea­king for it, and so we went. At the south cape, we saw the first and only sun­set of this voya­ge.

Horn­sund was so win­dy and grey that we didn’t bother going any­whe­re near it, we rather con­tin­ued direct­ly towards Recher­chefjord. Which wasn’t real­ly sun­ny and dry eit­her, but defi­ni­te­ly the bet­ter choice at that time.

Pho­to gal­lery: Sør­kapp-Recher­chefjord – 20th/21st August 2024

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

Thu
22 Aug
2024

At anchor next to Halv­må­neøya. The first view out­side: grey. Not­hing to see. The second view: stun­ning. We have a visi­tor. Any idea of a landing near the old famous trap­per sta­ti­on Bjør­ne­borg is for­got­ten for­got­ten for a while.

We con­tin­ued around Svar­t­hu­ken (the sou­the­as­tern point of Edgeøya, it used to have a dif­fe­rent name in the past) into Tjuv­fjord. It remain­ed win­dy and fog­gy. At least the fog cle­ared enough to allow some views of the stor­my land­scape of Edgeøya around Tjuv­fjord.

One of the nau­ti­cal (not just) high­lights of the voya­ge is bey­ond any doubt the pas­sa­ge into the lagoon Tjuv­fjord­la­gu­ne. I had bought a handhelt echo­sound­er for this trip espe­ci­al­ly with this pas­sa­ge on my mind, Ser­ge had kind­ly brought it to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. It tur­ned out to be a good thing to have, the ent­rance is not as deep as one might have thought. Not for big­ger ships. But we could enter after some hydro­gra­phi­cal rese­arch, sail all the way into the lagoon, enjoy some wild views of Delt­ab­reen (the nor­t­hern part of which seems to be advan­cing) and ancho­red in a posi­ti­on whe­re not many boats – if any at all – had ancho­red befo­re us. A litt­le walk in the huge morai­ne land­scape on the south side of the lagoon roun­ded things off for today. What an expe­ri­ence!

Pho­to gal­lery: from Halv­må­neøya to Tjuv­fjord­la­gu­ne – 19th August 2024

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

Tue
20 Aug
2024

Hin­lo­pen Strait was almost com­ple­te­ly hid­den behind den­se fog. At least we had reason­ab­ly good visi­bi­li­ty when we came to Alkef­jel­let, the magni­fi­cent colo­ny of Brünich’s guil­l­emots. Bey­ond that, the­re was not­hing to achie­ve in the area given cur­rent wea­ther con­di­ti­ons, so we just kept going and went down south to Barent­søya.

Pho­to gal­lery: Hin­lo­pen Strait to Barent­søya – 17th August 2024

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

The litt­le can­yon with the kit­ti­wa­kes in Free­man­sund will not be unknown to regu­lar rea­ders of my tra­vel blog. It is a won­derful place.

Curious polar bear che­cking my gear.
Pho­to © Tho­mas Härtrich/Norwegenfotograf.de (pho­to taken with long lens from the ship).

And inde­ed the fog left us in peace for a while, but a polar bear dis­tur­bed our ori­gi­nal plans the­re in a very plea­sant way.

Polar bear with my came­ra bag (pho­to © Kris­ti­na Hoch­auf-Stan­ge, screen­shot from a video.
I couldn’t get hold of my came­ra 🤪 ).

We could obser­ve the bear for a while, inclu­ding two unsuc­cessful attempts to catch a seal.

Flip­book: Polar bear hun­ting seals

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

Then we con­tin­ued with kit­ti­wa­kes and arc­tic foxes at Büdelf­jel­let on Barent­søya.

The surf at Kapp Brehm on the east side of Edgeøya was too hea­vy for a landing, so we con­tin­ued towards Ryke Yse­øya­ne, a small, remo­te and very rare­ly visi­ted group of three islands east of Edgeøya. The islands were the sce­ne of a tra­gic sto­ry in the late 1960. The­re are even two pages on spitsbergen-svalbard.com dedi­ca­ted to Ryke Yse­øya­ne and that sto­ry, click here and here to access them.

Pho­to gal­lery: Barent­søya to Ryke Yse­øya­ne – 18th August 2024

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