80 degrees North!

80 degrees North!

We woke up to herd of walrus at the island Moffen at 80 degrees North. Only 1111km separate us from the North Pole at this point!

There we turned south again cruising through the beautiful islands of North-West Spitzbergen on a wonderful autumn afternoon, we even had a few snowflakes on the way to smeerenburg. Another colony of walrus greeted us at this old whaling station and we dropped off the two polar circle boats, which went on cruise on their own looking at Virgohamna, the place where Andrè started his balloon expedition. And we also get our Muck boot rental shop running.

The Fram continued on into Magdalenefjorden, one of the most scenic and famous fjords on all of Svalbard, where we did our first landing of the trip. Gravneset, another ancient place where whalers lived and worked has one of the biggest graveyards on Spitzbergen with more than 100 graves. A nice walk took us from landing site to one of the glacier fronts, while the more adventurous went on a Kayak trip.