The land of the setting sun

We had to sail 300 miles due South from Bear Island, and expected this to take another two days (taking the total to 4 days since Longyearbyen), there would not be much to see on the next part, so we would have to keep happy by making cake and enjoying the ever warmer temperatures.

We spotted on the horizon a thing which looked like a yacht, in the sense that there are basically two kinds of things you see at sea - cargo and passenger liners which are long and low, and sailing boats, which have high masts that are seen well before the rest of the boat. This had a high mast so appeared to be a sailing boat, but did not seem to have any sails, and did not seem to be moving, it also seemed to be a long way away. As we got closer, it morphed into a huge oil exploration platform. This was a photo when we got a bit closer...

Fulmar in front of West Hercules oil platform

So the ways we explore the arctic have changed since the whale slaughter and blubber ovens we had seen at Smeerenburg, but all around us once out of Svalbard we saw fishing boats and now oil rigs too. Will the people in a few hundred years see us any better than we think of the whalers of the 17th century who pushed so many species so close to extinction they have still not recovered? They just wanted some whale oil after all....

Fortunately the whalers didn't get them all, and after the smaller Minke whales we saw in Northern Spitsbergen at almost the end of our trip we saw a giant Sperm whale next to the boat - I thought it was a rock at first that somehow I hadn't seen on the chart but then it blew a waterspout and dived. So this completed our 'big-5' sightings.

A huge sperm whale next to the boat - the worlds biggest carnivore

We hope you have enjoyed some of the photos on this blog, we've had a huge range of camera equipment to play with, and on the way back we tried out some additional interesting effects.

Some camera tricks from Rob

There was still no wind, and our weather forecast team (Ben) was keeping us posted by satellite phone on any updates. Sadly no wind materialised, and the main excitement of the trip started to be whether we would run out of diesel before we reached the Norwegian coast... We did every possible calculation and monitored the rate of usage every hour. At various points we were sure that we would not make it without more sailing (and so more wind) while at others we thought we could make it easily. We considered changing destination on the coast to the port where Nansen's 'the Fram' returned after her attempt to reach the North Pole over a hundred years ago - perhaps a fitting place for us to arrive after our arctic adventure?

As we kept out watches we realised that for the first time in two weeks the sun would set that night (Raymarine were back on form at these lower latitudes), there was now a much bigger difference in temperature between night and day and we were were all wondering where the switch for the navigation lights was....

Thanks to a late burst of wind when just 30 miles from the Norwegian coast, we made it back to Torsvag, the first fishing village on the coast in Norway with the help of our cutter rig. We now had around 40 liters of our 340 litre of diesel capacity remaining, we decided we would just be able to make it to Tromso without refuelling.

Passing Torsvag as we arrived at the Norwegian Coast

The Barents Sea didn't challenge our sailing this time, but after such a fabulous trip to a land so different to where we normally live, that it already seems a bit like a dream as I summarise it for the ships log.

I am sure we will return if Sysselmannen allows, and we hope the number of tourists does not get out of control. Perhaps then we will see a different side to this part of the Arctic Ocean.

Crossing the 70th parallel - not much whiskey left now

As we entered the fjords we collected the last of our 10 degrees of southerly sailing, passing the 70th, just over a week after the 80th. Rob and Dan felt they had to go swimming nearby to have done that at both as well! It was time at last to take off our thermal underwear, we were actually beginning to sweat a bit...

The scenery here is different with trees on all the hillsides and colourful little cabins, but you can see the marks the glaciers left on the land when temperatures were cold enough to sustain them.

We moored in the Boreal Yachting marina must before midnight on Friday ready to hand the boat back the next morning. We had sailed just over 1210 nautical miles in two weeks, and completed a passage of 650 to get back to Norway - all without more than one RYA 'night hour'!

Tromso from the top of the cable car

We were back in a land of cities, albeit very scenic ones and so we headed up to the hill above Tromso by cable car to take this final picture for the blog.

We hope you enjoyed reading - and perhaps have been inspired to do your own arctic adventure, even if only to the edge of the arctic circle.

Barny, Joy, Dan & Rob

Location:Bear Island to Tromso

Setting out into the Barents Sea

Late on Sunday we kicked half the crew out for their taxi to Longyearbyen airport. For them, the adventure was over but for the remaining four of us (Barny, Joy, Dan and Rob) we were only half way in time and distance (though more than halfway in scenery). We now had to get our boat back to Tromso on mainland Norway at a positively southern 69 degrees North. To do this we would have to set out across the Barents Sea named after the Dutchman who discovered many of the islands around here, a name surely almost as closely associated with the Arctic as the Bearing Strait.

We refueled, re-watered and re-provisioned for the onward trip and removed the huge quantities of rubbish which we had accumulated over the previous 9 days since this could not be dropped off anywhere else. Finally, knowing the reputation of the Barents Sea as a stormy place and as you have to sail generally upwind to get to Noway we stood out in the rain and tested out our storm jib and cutter sail options for efficient sailing in light and strong winds.

Just before 7pm we set off South, ready to cross the parallels of latitude every 12 hours or so starting with 78N. With the reduced crew we settled on a new tougher watch system - 4 hours on, 4 hours off with two 'dog watches' of two hours in the middle of the day so the same team were not always on the unpopular 12-4am.

The first night was a bumpy hack out of the Isfjord, but by morning the winds were settling and we had a beautiful sail down the South West coast of Spitsbergen, we saw several whales and many groups of dolphins rounding up fish in big groups leaping out of the water repeatedly to further confuse their prey while the sea birds dived from above.

Dolphins by the boat with birds ready to take advantage

The dying wind conditions led us to contemplate again the kit which we would recommend any sailors in Svalbard bringing. In addition to the 10 things we were glad we brought, we would add a couple which we wish we had:
- A thermometer. It would have a been interesting to have known the air temperature (Raymarine told us the sea temperature) on the days that seemed freezing cold and the days that seemed warm.
- Heated boots (for obvious reasons)/ hot water bottle for warming up cold feet after watches.
- cowboy boots for the Texas Bar?

And things we wish we hadn't brought... 3kg of jam and a cupboardful of pot noodles...

To return to the story, we passed the Sorkapp later on Tuesday evening but could still see the last peak for some 70nm offshore well into the next day. Now the next landfall would be Bjornoya (Bear Island) an isolated place half way back to Norway home to many birds (it has apparently one of the best birds cliffs in the Northern Hemisphere) and a few meteorologists. We spotted this late on Wednesday when the sky was noticeably getting duller (a feeling with which we are unfamiliar, but will have to get used to as we keep going South). By this time the wind had disappeared and we had been motoring for many hours. We knew it would be time to start pouring in the diesel from the reserve cans soon, but needed a sheltered placed to do it as it required hanging off the back of the boat to get them out.

Joy had been having nightmares about being wrecked off Bear Island, and her worries were not helped when we pulled out the chart of the Southern end to find the fearsome marking 'survey incomplete, navigate with caution'...
We approached within a mile of the bird cliffs which rose forbiddingly several hundred meters from the sea, and saw many more puffins, auks and guillimots in the water, some with their young as if teaching them to fish. We also spotted a flock of Eider ducks shown below. By this time the sea was a very confused chop and the boat was wobbling around, we were experiencing a strong west going current (about 3 kts) and decided that it was time to head for deeper waters, rather than drive against the current and seek a bay for refueling.

Eider Ducks at Bear Island

We headed away from the cliffs and within a few minutes they disappeared into the fog, it was midnight and we woke up the other watch, fished out the diesel cans and set ourselves up for the final leg towards Tromso.

Location:Longyearbyen to Bjornoya (Bear Island)

Kit

On this trip, there were certain items that we found indispensable.

Some of these items were recommendations from Mark, the skipper Barny sailed in the Northwest passage with last summer - a Dutch sailor/ boat builder who had spent 10 years sailing round Svalbard. Other items we have found surprisingly useful during our own experience of cold weather sailing.

These are items of clothing recommended for everyone sailing in cold climes:

1. Merino wool thermal underwear (can be worn non-stop for over two weeks without significant pong-age.)

2. Down-type jacket (either Primaloft -which is synthetic, and remains warm even when wet; or real down - which is noticeably warmer, but less tolerant of getting wet and much more bulky.)

3. Thick socks - 2.4 Tog socks aka 'heat holders' (note, more layers of socks does not equal warmer feet)

4. Buff - a 'neckerchief' type device, preferably of fleece material. This makes a surprising difference to warmth.


Essential kit for the boat:

1. Gun ( and people who have recently refreshed their knowledge of how to use said gun < the NRA run a relevant and entertaining polar bear shooting course in Bisley, Surrey>)

2. Bad Elf GPS widget for iPad - In our experience this is a reliable and accurate GPS device which interacts well with charts available for the iPad. We have experienced innumerable occasions both around the UK and elsewhere in the world when a charter boat's inbuilt GPS has failed and the Bad Elf has proved a valuable back up. In Svalbard, the boat's electronic charts ended at 79.30 degrees north, the charts on the iPad extended to at least 80 degrees north!

3. Ice axe - essential for hacking up icebergs into G&T sized chunks

4. Strategic twine reserve (no boat should ever be without this, it can fix more than you might initially imagine)

5. Propelling pencil (one pencil to rule them all....)

6. Red peppers (currently retailing at £8 per individual red pepper in Longyearbean supermarket - definitely room for an import business here!)

7. Massive Telephoto lenses and high power binoculars (you will be very glad you have these)

8. A vast number of camera memory cards (to go with the telephoto lens...)

9. Whiskey and chillies (for added internal fire, much appreciated in the arctic)

10. Additional numerous tea towels (nothing dries in this weather...)

11. As a pilot book, we highly recommend 'Den Norske Los 7' - for Svalbard and Jan Mayen. This is published jointly by the Norwegian Polar Institute and the Norwegian Hydrographic Service and is available in English for the non-Norwegian speakers. As well as excellent sailing, navigating and anchoring/ harbour information, it also has useful wildlife guides and a wealth of information on arctic weather patterns, ice and polar sailing. It is an engaging read if you have an interest in Polar adventures.

Location:Arctic

End of Part 1

We anchored off Smeerenburg after the 2nd polar bear sighting and slept for the night before going ashore to see the blubber ovens. Smeerenburg was the main Dutch whaling station in the 17th century and was reputed to be a lively town (albeit the population estimates varied from 200 to 20000 people). It was easy to imagine a little of how life would have been in the whaling days though with the sun shining it probably seemed more attractive a lifestyle than in a bitterly cold storm.

As the 2nd group were readying to see the village, Dan came over the VHF:
'arctic ice, arctic ice, arctic ice, this is arctic ice land party - one more thing, bring your swimming things...'

So at 79 degrees and 44 mins North, just where we had seen the polar bear swimming the night before (see Svalbard big 5), 616 miles from the North Pole, and further North than the magnetic pole to which most land-based teams trek, almost the whole crew launched themselves into the arctic water. Lets say it was bracing!

Swimming off the beach at Smeerenburg

The adrenaline rush lasted for the rest of the day, and certainly if any of you find yourself in the arctic on a sunny day, we can strongly recommend a quick dip. Especially if you have been constrained to 600 litres of water between 8 of you for 8 days and therefore have not washed for a week...

Having finished swimming and warmed up with a quick jog on the beach, we headed south again past the miserable anchorage we had experienced at Danskoya (which now looked stunning in the sunshine) and down to the 'most scenic fjord in Svalbard' - the Magdelegnafjord. There's a fair amount of competition for that accolade so we headed up a nearby ridge to see what the view from the land was like. At this point we were assaulted by the very aggressive Arctic Skewers that seemed worried about their nests even though we seemed to be hundreds of meters from where they initially approached us. We had to jump and shout while they repeatedly dived at us.




Having avoided the birds we made it to the view. There are only 25 visiting yachts in Svalbard and a season of only July and August, so there are few others to be seen, especially given the size of the archipelago and we have seen only 5 other yachts during our trip and never shared an anchorage with anyone... perhaps the drifting ice and total absence of any navigation marks (buoyage, cardinals, isolated dangers) keeps the random sailor at bay. At this point we spotted our sister ship Arctic Light that had been chartered by some Austrians (who Dan had met on his flight) in the same fjord and took this photo for the guys at Boreal - you probably need to click on the photo to see at a size where you can see the yachts.

Two Boreal Yachting boats in the Magdelgnafjord

From here we motored through the 'night' down to the Isfjord so that we would be withing easy striking range of the airport on Sunday for those members of the crew leaving at the end of the week.

Location:Smeerenburg to Longyearbyen

Svalbard big five & the great eight-zero

After a beer at the Texas Bar we grabbed some sleep in the Hornpeakpollen a natural harbour and then we headed out of the fjord to achieve our key objective for the trip (and earn our stash) a trip up to Moffen and an assault on the 80th parallel...

For those of a sailing persuasion you may be interested to note that this was the point we started to notice that the testing undertaken by some marine electronics vendors was not all they might make out.. We had just passed the latitude 79.5 degrees North and the very whizzy looking touch screen Raymarine chart plotter in the cockpit had given up, and so we would be using only the paper charts, plus the well known (and I project increasingly prevalent navigation device) the iPad (with a Bad Elf GPS unit) with the new c-map app which covers Svalbard. No doubt there are many who say that this is not a marine grade navigation, but fortunately our charter company has fitted an iPad holder and charger next to the chart table to facilitate this and it has proved a better bet than the purpose built options even better you can take it on deck when you come across some tricky pilotage (!)

Moffen is an atoll the South end of which is just above 80 degrees (600 miles from the North Pole), and is a protected area.


The Governor of Svalbard has declared a 300m exclusion zone for boats around Moffen from April - September (the only time the sea is liquid) so you have to stay a long way back but we managed to get a couple of shots of the beach-master with some ladies...


As you see the wild animals here you being to understand why people described newly discovered islands as 'enchanted' - the animals have no fear of people (either because they want to eat you or they want to find out what you are up to) so they wander up to you and you feel part of their world.

As we have collected up the Svalbard wildlife on camera we though we could introduce the concept of what the 'big 5' here would be. The first two are easy, the walrus and the polar bear which certainly would attack you given the chance. The later ones are not so easy, but we propose the Svalbard reindeer, whale and the arctic fox - that get's us to 4... and what of the 5th? Well we are holding out for one of the great whales, since in this marine world surely we need a marine member.

As we sailed south back through the North West Sounds (including a G&T at Sallyhamna) we were looking for polar bears again. It was clear that there is a reason Joy is a Radiologist as she noticed the 2nd polar bear of the trip this time swimming and diving for kelp.


We watched for almost an hour as the bear dived down to pull the kelp off the floor, and then swam on for more. There were some moments when a seal and polar bear popped up and looked at each other and then both dived and swam around, but there wasn't quite the blood bath we imagined!




There are few true land mammals here, and those which exist are of a slightly different species, and on the Reindeerflyt during our earlier cited walk one of the group had two encounters with the Svalbard Reindeer on the tundra


The cruising guide says that adolescent deer suffer from a near fatal level of curiosity. This proved to be true when, one of our landing parties spotted a trio of deer picking across a mountain in Reinsdyrflya. After seeing us they duly started edging their way towards the group (which had by now embraced its Japanese cultural roots and was snapping away ecstatically), they got to within 30m before fear exceeded curiosity and they ran away.



On our final land excursion in the Magdalenefjorden, we could tell that we were in the land of the arctic fox, we could hear the bird cliffs above and the flat land below, but we had to wait a few hours for the 2nd walking party to have this fox come up to them to collect almost the full set of arctic wildlife...
Ben, Gabi and Adam were sat up a scree slope looking over the fjord, when there was a clatter behind them (which caused them all to have a heart in mouth 'is it a polar bear?' moment). On turning around there was a small arctic fox, at most a metre long tip to tail. It stood there looking at us mentally calculating (They're not a Polar Bear so I'm not going to eaten, but they are probably too big for lunch...) before it turned and loped away, jumping from rock to rock.



We would also like to provide a recommendation for our tailored gear from Shush Sports who had our 80 degrees stash made up in less than a week. Many of us have been wearing the stash for a considerable part of the week. The crew of one of the other boats even asked us where they could buy some!

(Joy would like to point out that amazing as Adam's cooking was, her Michelin-like frame in this picture is in fact due to the down jacket under her stash...)



We are now making good progress back towards Danskoya, where we had thick fog before, though we are now in brilliant sunlight. On the way South we are hoping to visit Smeerenburg - the ruins of the main Dutch whaling towns in the 1600s where for 75 years they killed and boiled down as much whale blubber as possible until there were few whales left...

Location:Monacobreen to Smeerenburg

'Respect the wild places'

We woke up at 11am fresh from the midnight Polar bear sighting and set off on what would prove to be an epic day of adventuring. As we lifted the anchor I looked out across the fjord in the sunshine (missing for the last couple of days) and was reminded of the parting words of Arne (from Boreal Yachting) as we left Longyearbyen - 'respect the wild places'. The power of the glaciers, the icebergs that we had to weave between the huge scale of the scenery, the remoteness of our location - now only 620 miles from the North Pole was awesome.



As we headed out over the fjord I was struck by the familiarity of this to the mountains of South Georgia, but without the hurricane force winds.

As we prepared to head off on a walk around the 'Reinsdyrflya' (reindeer land) we looked at the maps and saw the official advice:

'Bow to the forces of nature in Svalbard and shoulder the responsibility for your own safety'

So again we geared up with the polar bear defence equipment and set off...



Making headway over land was a challenge. The first, and primary difficulty, was stopping taking photographs for long enough to put one foot in front of the other. The second problem was that the Reindyrflya (the location of our first walk) proved very boggy. Ultimately however the first group made it someway up a hill, for a nice view, spotting some reindeer (which give the Reindyrflya its name) and the second group had a nice walk along (and partially across!) a river

We stood at the river deltas from the glacial run off, and I advised the crew that surely this was all so stunning that 'if you're not happy with this, then you should not have come'!! Luckily they were all happy they had come.



As we started the process to get everyone back to the yacht the sun was getting to a lower point in the sky and one could almost believe it might set if you didn't know better. Raymarine knew better of course and told us that the sun would set at 25:22, which might sound stupid but not as bad as it telling us that the sun would rise at 120:40 - insightful.



Once everyone was back on board we headed up to one of the most staggering sights in Svalbard the glacier font of the Monacobreen 5km wide glacier, so huge that when the crew guessed how far away it was the average answer was 3 miles when it was over 10 miles. We only made it to within 2 miles but already but it didn't fit in the photos.



In front of the glacier we spotted a bearded seal hauled upon an iceberg, we hoped it might lure in a polar bear but there was no sign of those, only the tremendous cracking of the glacier behind him to keep us on our toes.

Bearded seal at the Monacobreen

After this we headed off to what is surely the world's most Northerly bar - the Texas Bar, a cabin at 79deg 36 mins. You have to bring your own drinks but the view is great back across the Monacobreen.

A beer at the Texas Bar

With the sun never setting it seems the body can keep going for far longer without feeling tired - the second landing party got back from the Texas Bar at 0430! The means that evenings often stretch out longer than expected (we have several times ended up serving dinner at 10 or 11pm when at anchor when not paying attention). It also leaves endless scope to play 'Guess the time' with anyone who has just woken up! Joy was the winner at this having thought it was half 4 in the afternoon, when it was actually 9pm!

Appendix 1
For those wondering what you can do to keep warm, Adam as the coldest person on the trip has set out what he wore to prepare for a watch in middle of the night at Tun Garment Factor 29:

- 1 pair Canary Wharf city socks
- 1 pair merino wool skiing socks
- 1 pair sailing boots (Arthur's)
- 1 olive green knee length alpine hiking socks
- pants (M&S)
- 2 x synthetic leggings
- 2 x skiing sallopetts
- 1 x sailing salopettes
- merino wool thermal top
- t shirt
- lycra tech top (JCBC)
- Svalbard stash
- RAB polar fleece
- RAB primaloft jacket
- quiksilver skiing jacket (Zaki's)
- Fairview sailing jacket
- pair outerreach mountain gloves (inner and outer glove set)
- get high in macau buff
- nepal style sherpa hat
- Uvex cycling sunglasses

.... And he didn't even go outside!!!

Location:Liedfjord (Worsleyhamna) to the Monacobreen (still in the Leidfjord)

Birding

One of the fabulous things about sailing here is the bird life. We have been hammering away with the newly acquired telephoto lenses to bring you a selection of the best of the bird life here...

Little Auk in the Isfjord

Of course a favorite is the Atlantic puffins which often fly off the coast, especially close to Ny Allyson, and off the North coast. They fly up to the boat and often fly around us to work out what we are up to. One particularly excitable puffin did 7 laps of the boat at close range - it must have known we needed some photo practice!

Puffin landing on the water near Ny Alesund

Puffin circles the boat off the North coast of Spitsbergen

Then there are the ones on icebergs.. The ones below are black-legged kittiwakes. We can only presume that these have tremendously warm feet, enabling them to stand on icebergs - however they have to move frequently to avoid sinking irreversibly into the ice.

Kittywakes in the Leidfjord

Arctic birds are unimaginably more aggressive than in Britain - walk near a pigeon in the Capital and it will waddle away, possibly deigning to fly if your boot seems particularly close. Here, if you get within 50m of a tern it will start a piercing clacking screech. Even as you try to skirt around it, or retreat, it will take to the air above you and dive bomb passing close to your head - all the time screeching. It then gains height again, placing itself between you and the sun (so you can't quite see the screaming banshee) before diving again. The photo below is of a tern in action attacking Barny!

Arctic Tern outside Ny Allson

Living near to the town in Ny Allson are several hundred pairs of Barnacle geese, which walk fearlessly around the town of a couple of hundred people probably threatened only by the huge number of tourist ships which come to the town.



And finally some Brunnich's guillemots (with the white beak stripe which differentiates it from the common guillemot) not much to say, but we thought it was a nice photo.

Location:Cooksund to Woodjfjord