Spitsbergen 2013

A very quick update as comms are tenuous - we'll also try to upload a pic or two but if it fails please bear with us or if formatting is a little ragged.  

After a 24 hour stop-over in the globe's most northerly settlement, Ny Alesund (pop 30 in winter 150 in summer), we have fixed the heater which is a very major fillip to morale!  As tends to be the case in these remote expedition locales, a 'fraternity' spirit prevails and support is readily forthcoming; our heater fix owes much to the skipper and crew of the Dutch schooner Noorderlicht (who provided copper pipe for an exhaust), the Polish Chief Engineer of the expedition support vessel 'Expedition' (who braised the connections) and the staff of the Kings Bay Company in Ny Alesund whose workshop is equipped for most eventualities.  Our gearbox leak continues, but we are making progress with that too.  All in all a most rewarding interlude.  We have also checked in with the extremely helpful and friendly police representatives of the Svalbard Governor based in the settlement, who keep check on passing vessels, ensure they have the necessary permits and provide assistance and advice in equal measure. Their main role is to protect environmental standards and the very many historical sites in the area.  Sadly, our visit coincided with a fatality on a small cruise ship which is a salutory reminder of the dangers all in the area face in these harsh climes.

From Ny Alesund we enjoyed the most spectacular glacier viewing thus far at the head of the Kongsfjord.  Threading our way to the glacier face through floating ice into uncharted water where the glacier has receded, we were rewarded with a most extraordinary landscape of ice in all its majesty.   Last night was spent in a delightful anchorage at Ny London - a testament to the failed endeavour of much of what we have witnessed - in this case a British marble mining enterprise c1920s.

From here we shall head north again into Krossfjorden with more spectaculr glaciers before returning to Ny Alesund for a quick fuel and water stop and then heading back to sea and north to the north-west tip of Spitsbergen.  The latest ice charts suggest that is where we shall meet our hard stop as ice currently blocks any further progress across the northern shores for a circumnavigation.  But there is so much yet to explore this is in no way a disappointment.  The situation evolves on a daily basis so we shall see what happens over the next few days.

The 120' barque 'Antigua' gives some idea of scale.

You're too close to my nest!

16th Jun.  We have recently weighed anchor from deep in the St Jonsfjorden - a sizeable fjord culminating in a most impressive glacier.  Taking Atlantis into uncharted water recently uncovered by the retreating glacier face was an exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking experience; complicated further by the need to dodge floating ice that had recently carved from the glacier face.  You really cannot appreciate the scale of the scenery here until close up and personal.  From a distance the glacier looked impressive enough.  At its face one begins to appreciate the size of the ice cliff which, in this case we estimate to be well over 100 feet.  To give some idea of scale, the white blocks floating at the base on the right of the photo are about the height of a man.

Now, to recap a little and make up for the paucity of words published since we left Longyearbyen.  Pictures from previous posts provide the illustrations.  After an initial day spent in the Isfjord we visited a small bay named Borebukta to witness the close floating ice still there after the winter, then it was a short sail into Trygghamna a small fjord at the mouth of the main Isfjord.  The following day, in a near perfect anchorage close to the end of the fjord we inflated the dinghy and set off for our first foray ashore.  On the beach, signs of Arctic fox and a close up view of a smaller glacier.   Back on board another night at the same anchorage before a morning departure back into the open sea.  On route we idled near the mouth of Trygghamna to view a pair of snoozing walrus lying on the beach, the monumental bird cliff roost overlooking the beach and the remnants of whaling camps established on the headland.  

At sea again, it was a hard beat north along the coast to a sheltered anchorage at the northern end of a bay known as Eidembukta - you'll have detected by now that bukta = bay.  Here the first blow to morale was the discovery that our trusty heater had taken a gopher (wave) into its exhaust pipe and, as most of us would in similar circumstances, was now refusing to soldier.  An uncomfortable couple of hours in the cramped lazarette at the back of the boat with the heater failed to elicit a repair.  As mentioned before, this is a blow to morale but not catastrophic.  After an otherwise comfortable night tucked in behind a small group of skerries (rocks), it was time to move on again.

First stop was the low Poolepynten headland pictured in a previous blog.  It is home to a resident group of walrus who seem to relish playing lazily to the cameras.  The weather, still blustery, precluded a planned longer stop and we headed east into the five mile long St Jonsfjorden.  After viewing the glacier face it was time to find an anchorage which we achieved in a sheltered spot only metres from a grey shingle beach.

A further setback was the discovery that a seal in the engine gearbox seems to have blown (there's a joke that's very similar, but it's not suitable for a family blog) and be leaking significant quantities of oil into the bilge.  This could be more serious but not yet.  One to watch and in the meantime we shall keep topping up with as much as we lose.  A repair, here, is impractical and we shall press on regardless.  Atlantis is, after all, a sailing boat!

16 June.  After our coldest night so far (-3ºC) in the cabin, we weighed anchor, exited the fjord spying as we did so, a couple of reindeer grazing high on the slopes above us.  As I type, we are heading for the northern end of the Forlandsundet (Forland Strait) and plan to overnight at Svalbard's most northerly and remote settlement at Ny Alesund.

Our lack of recent blogs reflects not just the ever changing distractions we are privileged to experience here, or the fatigue of two days plugging to windward in strong winds and freezing seas, but also the difficulty we now have getting a satellite signal which disappears altogether when we are in fjords.  In open water, the signal is weak, slow and unable to multi-task - rather like us as a crew really, as the temperature and conditions become ever harsher.