This morning we did a bit
a rainy landing at Gåshamna, but what a beautiful place in Hornsund! Several
Arctic skuas, Kittiwakes and Arctic terns were flying above the river plain and
over our heads.
But not only birds were welcoming us, we met a lot of “history”
on this place: Whalers, probably from England, left plenty of whalebones from
bowhead whales. The Russian division of the Arc-de-Meridian expedition wintered
there in 1899-1900, the remains of the astronomical observatory
“Konstantinovka” are still visible and also a trapper hut from 1906 can be seen
as our guide Line told us.
After an hour we were heading back to the boat -
getting dry for the next landing in the afternoon, when we went to another spectacular
place in Hornsund: Burgerbukta. As the fog lifted, we could see this bay which
is surrounded by glaciers calving into the sea. Some of us hiked up the moraine
and got a spectacular view over glaciers and surrounding colourful mountains. The
kayakers went between big and small pieces of ice in front of the glaciers,
listening to the arctic silence, hearing nothing than their own paddle stroke.
Back
on boat the Philipino crew prepared for us a marvelous buffet with specialities
from their home country; but this was not the end of the day: in the Panorama
Lounge we got to see the famous Crewshow. The Philipinos were singing, dancing
and we even got a visit by the “Russian maids” – what good entertainment we
had.
