After a day of lovely
sunny weather we again woke up to rain and fog. At 07:00 we reached 80N and Moffen Island. This small
island is a haul-out place for Walrus, and we saw two big groups sleeping on
the beach. This is a nature reserve and we must keep a distance of 300 meters
from the island. During the
morning the wind increased and we experience wind up to 21 m/s or 41 knots.
White caps were everywhere, make
landing in the polar circle boats too dangerous. The Artic summer weather is
unpredictable. Our first landing, which was supposed to be in Kinnvika, was
unfortunately cancelled. In Kinnvika are ten buildings from the Swedish-Finnish
research expedition during the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958. This
was the greatest international scientific effort the world had seen to date. We
could see the buildings as we passed by.
At 14:00 we sailed
passed the impressive Alkefjellet where 300 pairs of Brünnich's Guillemots (Murres) nest
during the summer. We could see many on the water and some up in the cliffs. Manuel
could told us about their way of living and that the whole colony is quite
synchronize and all the chic’s would leave the nest on almost the same day!
We continued our
travel towards Torellneset, where we hoped to have a landing and maybe have a
closer look on the walrus that often rest here. The weather was still bad, and
landing too dangerous. Safety first! Even the walruses had taken a hint and had
disappeared from the beach.
We enjoyed the day
inside Fram, enjoying lectures about glaciers, polar bears and the historical
FRAM expedition in 1893-1896. I imagine those guys also experienced all kinds of
arctic summer weather!
