Wed
22 May
2024

Some impres­si­ons from Longyearbyen’s near sur­roun­dings, whe­re the snow began to dis­ap­pear quite rapidly in ear­ly May. But the­re was quite a lot of drift ice in Advent­fjord (and not only the­re) in ear­ly May, much to the delight of many in Lon­gye­ar­by­en who enjoy­ed the views.

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

The two gulls are les­ser black-backed gulls (that’s what I think, at least; gulls are a bit of a sci­ence), quite rare birds in Spits­ber­gen.

Mean­while, the geese have arri­ved and gather on snow-free tun­dra are­as in and near Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­re are more and more of them every day, a beau­tiful time for bir­ders and natu­re lovers.

“Ice in Advent Bay”: 1896 and 2024

The ice in Advent­fjord remin­ded me much of an old image from 1896. This (below) is how the Eng­lish­man Mar­tin Con­way saw Advent­fjord – Lon­gye­ar­by­en did not exist back then, but the­re was a hotel at Hotell­ne­set, not far from whe­re the air­port is today.

Con­way and his group were the first ones to cross Spits­ber­gen over land from Advent Bay, as it was known back then, to the east coast. Later he wro­te the clas­sic “The first crossing of Spits­ber­gen”, which is high­ly recom­men­ded by the pre­sent aut­hor.

“Ice in Advent Bay”. This is how Mar­tin Con­way saw Advent­fjord in 1896.
It loo­ked very simi­lar in ear­ly May 2024.

Sun
5 May
2024

A ship is cle­ar­ly the best way to tra­vel in a coun­try with a coast­li­ne as Nor­way has ⛵️👍😎 as we did it the last cou­ple of days with SV Mean­der. But belie­ve it or not, the­re are other opti­ons. To round this chap­ter of my tra­vels off, we had a good look around Bodø, from Salt­fjel­let with the polar cir­cle in the south to Salts­trau­men and Kjer­rin­gøy in the north. Beau­tiful places, some of which I am sure we will visit under sail as soon as the oppor­tu­ni­ty comes up.

A high­light for me was the sight­ing of moo­se – we don’t have them in Spits­ber­gen. We saw as many as nine of them just one evening! And no, that does not include the three reinde­er in the first image with hoo­fed ani­mals in the gal­lery below 😄.

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

Wed
1 May
2024

Now, on the last full day of the trip, north Nor­way pre­sen­ted its­elf the way it is gene­ral­ly known: grey and a bit wet. Not bad at all, no wind and hea­vy rain, just some mois­tu­re. Quite refres­hing actual­ly after all tho­se sun­ny days.

After landing with the din­gi on the beach of Bø, whe­re we were gree­ted by a red fox, we fol­lo­wed a way to an area of rocky hills. Next to a sea eagle and some love­ly views, we found remains of a rather dark chap­ter of histo­ry. During the second world war, the Ger­man occu­p­iers built a huge coas­tal bat­tery known as “Bat­te­rie Dietl” here on Engeløya, an equi­va­lent of simi­lar for­ti­fi­ca­ti­on with some huge can­nons clo­se to Har­stad in Ves­terå­len.

In the after­noon, we had 48 miles to Bodø ahead of us and a series of pre­sen­ta­ti­ons of board. Then, in the har­bour of Bodø, the trip came to and end. It was a gre­at one, bles­sed with a lot of good wea­ther and wild­life – my thanks you all who were part of it in wha­te­ver way! The tri­plog will soon fol­low on a dedi­ca­ted page within the sec­tion – sur­pri­se! – tri­plogs and pho­to gal­le­ries.

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