Sun
15 Jun
2025

This was fol­lo­wed by a mor­ning in the tun­dra bet­ween Farm­ham­na and Eidem­buk­ta and a some­what grey but inte­res­t­ing evening in Coles­buk­ta. With lots of ice in Bore­buk­ta and a few miles under sail towards Lon­gye­ar­by­en, this beau­tiful, eventful jour­ney came to an end. We didn’t reach the drift ice, but to our gre­at delight we were lucky with the polar bears, and what other exci­ting impres­si­ons and expe­ri­en­ces did the­se won­derful days bring! All of this in a gre­at atmo­sphe­re, for which I would like to thank ever­yo­ne, first and fore­most the crew of SV Mean­der of cour­se – thank you to ever­yo­ne, and see you soon in July!

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Tue
10 Jun
2025

A day in Kross­fjord, with a hike in Sig­ne­ham­na and a detour to the migh­ty Lil­lie­höök­breen.
 
 

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Mon
9 Jun
2025

We spent a good two days in the north-west of Spits­ber­gen, bet­ween Bjørn­ham­na and Raud­fjord. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, due to the wea­ther, we were not gran­ted a trip to the drift ice (the wave height the­re was 1-1.5 met­res at the time), so we spent a day in Raud­fjord ins­tead. We didn’t reg­ret the swap 🐻‍❄️😎 and were once again able to see that even with the now legal­ly requi­red distance of 500 met­res (300 met­res from 1 July), an impres­si­ve expe­ri­ence and beau­tiful pho­tos are pos­si­ble.

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Tue
3 Jun
2025

The mor­ning in Bore­buk­ta was not­hing short of magni­fi­cent. Under exci­tingly chan­geable (harm­less, but beau­tiful) wea­ther con­di­ti­ons, we hea­ded towards Bore­breen.

The after­noon began with a walk at Bohe­man­nes­et and then we sai­led towards Bil­lefjord until we drop­ped anchor in Skans­buk­ta. What a beau­tiful day, once again!

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Sat
31 May
2025

A won­derful mor­ning in Trygg­ham­na, with lots of snow and ice and a gla­cier lagoon under a blue sky.

In the after­noon, more gre­at sce­n­ery in the neigh­bou­ring bays of Ymer­buk­ta and Bore­buk­ta. A litt­le win­dy.

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Sat
31 May
2025

A beau­tiful day on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen, in For­lands­und. It was good to see the sun again.

For­lands­und is known for wal­ru­ses. That’s what we were after, and they were at home ☺️

We went for a short hike in St. Jons­fjord. A bit of exer­cise did us good, and the views over the land­scape, fell and fjord, snow and ice … mar­vell­ous!

Then it was time to get away from the west coast. It was going to be quite stor­my the­re over the next few days. But that shouldn’t bother us too much in Isfjord. So off we went!

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

Fri
30 May
2025

A day in the north-west of Spits­ber­gen. Start­ing in the beau­tiful Hamil­ton­buk­ta in Raud­fjord, reinde­er and arc­tic foxes said good mor­ning to each other under a lar­ge birdcliff. Later, we met an almost curious beard­ed seal.

The lar­ge Svitjod­breen gla­cier in Fuglefjord was a litt­le grey, but this made it appear even wil­der and more powerful.

Some fri­end­ly har­bour seals on the coast of Dan­s­køya roun­ded off this eventful, beau­tiful day.

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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.

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Mon
26 May
2025

A short trip with SV Mean­der in Isfjord. Just 1.5 days, and yet it was real­ly worth it – espe­ci­al­ly as nobo­dy flew in, the par­ti­ci­pan­ts were all local mem­bers of the Lon­gye­ar­by­en Pho­to Club (foto­klubb).

It’s unbe­lie­va­ble what you can do and see in such a short time if you’re lucky with the wea­ther! A few impres­si­ons, from Trygg­ham­na to Bore­buk­ta and Coles­buk­ta:

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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.

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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 …

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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.