Early in the morning we woke up to our first real day on this
exploration cruise. The weather was a bit cloudy, but turned out to the better.
The origin of the Ny-Ålesund settlement was coal mining, but after a
serious accident in 1962 mining was ended. Today the settlement is an
international scientific station conducting Arctic research.
Ny-Ålesund was also the
starting point for several attempts to reach the North Pole by planes and
air-ships. Amundsen, Ellsworth and Nobile are some of the historic names linked
to this beautiful place. Several thousand tourists visit the settlement every
year, most in the short and hectic summer.
Guided tours were offered
around the settlement to those who wanted extra information by our guides to
see the remnants of the old mining town and the different scientific stations.
This was also the last chance to use the credit card on land until we hit
Scoresbysund in NE-Greenland.
At lunch time it was time
to leave Ny-Ålesund and head north to our next stop, Magdalenefjorden and 80N.
Enjoying a delicious lunch
we passed Sjubreene aka the seven glaciers in beautiful weather.
In the afternoon we
entered the fjord Magdalenefjorden surrounded by pointy peaks and glaciers and
dropped anchor at Trinity harbour. It did not take much imagination to get the
same feeling as Willem Barentz had when he discovered Svalbard in 1596.
Gravneset in
Magdalenefjorden is a large cemetery, dating from the whaling period consisting
of of 130 graves. The funerals took place over a period of almost 200 years,
with the earliest graves dating from the early 1600s and the more recent ones
dating from the late 1700s. On the beach by the cemetery there are four blubber
ovens.
The expedition team are
always the first to go ashore, to make sure everything is safe for our clients.
Some went on a cayak trip while the rest had a good walk along the beach to
look at the blubber ovens and have a closer look at the beautiful mountains and
glaciers.
A colony of wahlrus had
been discovered, so on the return to the ship everyone had a chance of a closer
look to these lazy creatures weighing 1-2 tons.
During the evening we
headed north towards Danskøya on our way to 80N. On our way we met the misty
and mysterious fog.
The discussion onboard has
been the tremors in a volcanic area in Iceland, but as we move out of coverage
of the satellites we can’t do anything else but wait and hope for the best. At
least the geologist onboard are very interested in this ;0)
