With SV Mean­der from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to the ice

Thu
29 May
2025

‘Cast off’ was the mot­to on Mon­day on the Mean­der in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, off and away into this time that lies some­whe­re bet­ween Arc­tic win­ter and sum­mer. With lots of snow and ice, but wit­hout snow­mo­bi­les and wit­hout the extre­me­ly cold tem­pe­ra­tures that could make being out­side a few weeks ago a bit of a chall­enge.

So the Arc­tic sum­mer is well on its way to Spits­ber­gen, and in co-ope­ra­ti­on with a hef­ty dose of cli­ma­te chan­ge, this hot duo is in the pro­cess of moving the drift ice nor­thwards away from the coast of Spits­ber­gen. As we wan­ted to get a glim­pse of the drift ice, we made sure to get the­re with a sto­po­ver in Ny-Åle­sund befo­re it was com­ple­te­ly out of reach. ‘Nor­mal­ly’, let’s say 20 years ago, the drift ice edge would per­haps have been found in the Ams­ter­damøya area on the coast at the end of May. Today it lies at 80 degrees north. And that’s whe­re – and a few miles fur­ther – we were on the third day of the trip to expe­ri­ence the beau­tiful world of ice. Roun­ded off by a love­ly litt­le evening landing in Sal­ly­ham­na.

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

Do you agree that spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a gre­at re­source for any arc­tic enthu­si­ast?

Ever­y­thing is available for free, no pay­wall, no regis­tra­ti­on, no paid adver­ti­sing, and all this in spi­te of con­stant cos­ts and effort. Plea­se help us to keep it that way, wit­hout pay­wall and paid ads, and sup­port us through Ste­ady!