Spitsbergen with SV Meander, 01-18 July 2023

Mean­der in drift ice.

The drift ice in Spits­ber­gen had star­ted to dis­ap­pear rapidly over the last cou­ple of days, but we found it north of Hin­lo­pen Strait. What a day! What an expe­ri­ence to move slow­ly bet­ween the ice floes with a small ship. Thank you, Mario!

We con­tin­ued in Hin­lo­pen Strait, whe­re we spent seve­ral days. Start­ing in the polar desert land­scape on Stor­stein­hal­vøya, we con­tin­ued to Alkef­jel­let and from the­re into Wahl­enberg­fjord. After a love­ly hike across the polar desert to the rim of the huge ice cap Ves­t­fon­na we wan­ted to con­ti­nue towards Pal­an­der­buk­ta but we never made it the­re becau­se two swim­ming polar bears just kept blo­cking our way! The­se very curious ani­mals just didn’t bother about the rules of right of way at sea. I guess nobo­dy had told them … also this sight­ing, just as the pre­vious one, was a rare and beau­tiful expe­ri­ence. Stun­ning!

Swim­ming polar bears play­ing in Wahl­enberg­fjord.

It was deci­dedly too fog­gy for the detour to Brås­vell­breen, so we went towards with a brief visit to Kie­per­tøya on the way south. After a first landing at Kapp Zie­hen – a pret­ty rare landing – we visi­ted a kit­ti­wa­ke colo­ny and arc­tic foxes in Free­man­sund and made a love­ly hike in the wide tun­dra the­re.

Then it was time to make some miles to the south. A landing near the gla­ciers in Ham­berg­buk­ta roun­ded this leg of the jour­ney off befo­re we sai­led around the south cape.

Pho­to gal­lery 3: From the ice in the north to the south cape

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

To page/foto gal­lery:  → From Lon­gye­ar­by­en to Kongsfjord  → On Spitsbergen’s north coast  → From the ice in the north to the south cape  → Back on the west coast

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