Gallery 4: Hinlopen Strait

The polar desert on Nord­aus­t­land is a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent world than Spitsbergen’s rich tun­dra. Still here is life here, and the­re was much more life here (whe­re­ver „here“ was back then) about 800 mil­li­on years ago. Traces of this life are now cra­cked up by the frost, here abo­ve 80 degrees north.

But life is even more ple­n­ti­ful at Alkef­jel­let, the famous bird cliff. Life is team­ing the­re! So it is in the water, a Fin wha­le is out and about fee­ding on plank­ton. We are at the right place at the right time, some­thing that hap­pens more than just a few times during this trip.

Time for a good hike in Lom­fjord, and even though it is a bit fog­gy, this does not real­ly mat­ter as long as it is not too much and the curtain is lif­ting when­ever nee­ded.

Life on the ice is team­ing in quite a dif­fe­rent way, wrap­ped up in impres­si­ve­ly thick skin and blub­ber lay­ers, armed with big tusks. Both view, sound and smell are ama­zing.

We alre­a­dy knew that the sou­thern Hin­lo­pen Strait would be our tur­n­around point when we left Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but as said more than once: from now on we would not go back, we would just con­ti­nue in the oppo­si­te direc­tion.

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

To Gal­lery:  → Kongsfjord  → The Nor­thwest  → Wood­fjord  → Hin­lo­pen Strait  → Wide-open tun­dra in Sorg­fjord  → The west coast  → The west coast, con­tin­ued fur­ther south  → Horn­sund  → Bell­sund and Isfjord

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