Thu
8 May
2025

What a day! Start­ing with the fan­ta­stic wea­ther. It couldn’t have been bet­ter.

We spent the mor­ning in Coles­buk­ta. In addi­ti­on to this important part of Spitsbergen’s histo­ry, the­re were snow bun­tings, reinde­er, silence, beau­tiful sce­n­ery and the odd group of snow­mo­bi­lers, which seems quite unu­su­al when you’re tra­vel­ling by boat yours­elf.

To com­ple­te the sto­ry, we later made a pas­sa­ge near Gru­mant­by­en. The two places belon­ged tog­e­ther.

In the after­noon we went to Bore­buk­ta. Sim­ply mar­vell­ous­ly beau­tiful! The­re were wal­ru­ses ever­y­whe­re on the ice floes of bro­ken up fjord ice and num­e­rous small ice­bergs drif­ting in the water next to them. And all this under a blue sky and with no wind at all!

We didn’t see more than a trace of the King of the Arc­tic … but that chan­ged in Dick­son­fjord, whe­re we had actual­ly only plan­ned to go for a short evening walk. But then the polar bear came wal­king up and we dis­co­ver­ed that you can have a won­derful expe­ri­ence and take beau­tiful pho­tos even from the now legal­ly pre­scri­bed distance of 500 met­res. Good thing that I inves­ted in a came­ra and lens again last autumn, which real­ly scores points in a situa­ti­on like this. By the way, ever­yo­ne who is here on board with us on Mean­der will of cour­se be pro­vi­ded with pho­tos by me.

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

By the way, I would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to point out that we still have seve­ral places available on Mean­der in the most beau­tiful Arc­tic sum­mer, 10-18 July (Ger­man spea­king)! If you are inte­res­ted, just get in touch with Uwe Maaß at the Geo­gra­phi­sche Rei­se­ge­sell­schaft. On all our trips, I will use high-qua­li­ty came­ra tech­no­lo­gy to ensu­re the best pos­si­ble pic­tures, which all par­ti­ci­pan­ts will recei­ve!

Tue
6 May
2025

A mar­vell­ous day in For­lands­und! The wal­ru­ses at Sar­stan­gen were in a good mood. It’s unu­su­al to see the land­scape so win­try the­re, but it’s beau­tiful.

It was also real­ly win­try on Prins Karls For­land, on a snow­shoe tour in Sel­vå­gen.

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

Mon
5 May
2025

A mar­vell­ous day in Kross­fjord, at the gla­cier in Fjor­ten­de Juli­buk­ta and at Lloyd’s Hotel. The rest of the sto­ry is told by the pic­tures …

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

Mon
5 May
2025

In the mor­ning, Ny-Åle­sund in Kongsfjord was on the pro­gram­me. Of the many visits to the nor­t­hern­most sett­le­ment on Spits­ber­gen – or the world, depen­ding on how you defi­ne ‘sett­le­ment’ – this was defi­ni­te­ly one of the nicer ones for me, with a distinct­ly win­try cha­rac­ter, suns­hi­ne and blue ski­es. Gre­at!

A drift ice field had tem­po­r­a­ri­ly blo­cked the har­bour, but Mean­der has a thick skin and a lot of steam in the boi­ler, so that wasn’t a pro­blem.

To our sur­pri­se, the fast ice in inner Kongsfjord had alre­a­dy com­ple­te­ly bro­ken up and lar­ge­ly dis­sol­ved. That’s pret­ty unu­su­al at the begin­ning of May.

Nevert­hel­ess, the situa­ti­on allo­wed us to sail to the end of Kongsfjord and enjoy magni­fi­cent views of the many ice­bergs in front of Krone­breen under the sun and blue sky.

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

Sat
3 May
2025

We spent the third day of the trip on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen in For­lands­und. In Farm­ham­na, oppo­si­te the trap­per sta­ti­on, we set off on a short hike into the win­try land­scape, with the icy wind dri­ving the snow around our feet. A won­derful Arc­tic land­scape: vast and bar­ren, wild and beau­tiful!

The Dah­l­breen was the first gla­cier we later saw with our eyes and len­ses. Who knows how many gla­ciers would turn out to be acces­si­ble at this ear­ly time of year? It was cer­tain­ly right to take the oppor­tu­ni­ty here. Well, the­re was cer­tain­ly not­hing wrong with it any­way 🙂

We rea­ched Ny-Åle­sund in the late evening, befo­re the wea­ther fore­cast pre­dic­ted it would get a litt­le uncom­for­ta­ble off the coast.

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

Thu
1 May
2025

We cast off yes­ter­day (Wed­nes­day, 30 April) in Lon­gye­ar­by­en with SV Mean­der – Spits­ber­gen under sail 2025 gets under­way! Mar­vell­ous!

It’s ear­ly in the sea­son. This trip is still in the Arc­tic win­ter. Late win­ter, but win­ter, the snow is ever­y­whe­re and the tem­pe­ra­tures are below free­zing.

So we set off in good spi­rits, with Mario at the wheel and Jan at the pots, to men­ti­on names that might still be fami­li­ar to tho­se who have been on the Mean­der in recent years. Of cour­se, there’s also Fabi­an, Mar­tin and Nane. And me and ele­ven peo­p­le who have a tas­te for Arc­tic natu­re.

The first leg took us north to Skans­buk­ta, whe­re we also made our first shore lea­ve of the trip today. Skans­buk­ta in win­ter dress, beau­tiful and quite dif­fe­rent from what it usual­ly looks like!

The tra­vel blog will con­ti­nue to be updated over the next few days. And if this whe­ts your appe­ti­te, you are wel­co­me to join us on Mean­der in July, as we still have a few places available from 10 to 18 July (Ger­man spea­king trip). Get in touch if you are inte­res­ted to jon us on that one! Other­wi­se, pret­ty much ever­y­thing is ful­ly boo­ked.

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