Another harbour day in Longyearbyen

Back from another week-long trip around Northern Spitsbergen. We had a lot of good weather, but still too much ice in Hinlopen and around Sjuøyane, so some landings had to be cancelled and the ship had to be rerouted several times.



But nobody seemed to mind, least of all the captain who is remarkably "ice-happy" and cooperative. The group, a mix of Irish, British and Dutch with a couple of other nationalities (Russian, Australian, South African, Swiss, Belgian... forgot any?) were a happy bunch and the only remarkable problem we encountered was another ship that had taken our spot on Fuglesangen - not exactly a first, but definitvely strange to see how Svalbard logistics starts to resemble the Antarctic IAATO bureaucracy more and more, the forms, the "all-ship schedule e-mails" etc.

We finally received the compressor and brand-new scuba tanks (although I will not get too excited until they are actually loaded and stored onboard the vessel). So in fact I will need to rush back to the ship and install and check everything...

Next post in approx. one week.