Plain Sailing
We’re 100 nautical miles out to sea, having sailed all night to reach the centre of the West Spitsbergen Current. At intervals through the journey, oceanographer Simon Boxall has been measuring the temperature and salinity of the water. The entire[…..]
Arctic Notes 8 – 9/25/10
[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Glacial Arktic Sketch, audio file Arktos Free-verse (scientific style!!!) “One day differed very little from another on board the ship, and the description of one is, in every particular of any importance, a[…..]
Fail again, fail better
Yesterday we abandoned our third attempt to travel down the Hinlopen Fjord along the east coast of Spitsbergen. Each time we’ve sailed around the headland in calm seas to be met by near gale-force winds being funnelled up through the[…..]
Rock concert
Video by Matt Wainwright.
The Moon
We’re making our third attempt to move south through Hinlopenfjorden to reach the ice domes on the east coast of Spitsbergen. There’s 20 minutes less sunlight every day as the polar winter approaches, so we’ve moved the clocks forward by[…..]
How a boat is like an instrument
Read Ruth’s post on how a boat is like an instrument. Continue reading
Bearings
Muffin Island, 80⁰N. We’re so close to the magnetic north pole that compasses won’t work. This is a place of lost bearings, and it seems right somehow that all our qualities of movement are different here. Out in open water[…..]
Current Affairs
We anchored on Sunday morning in King’s Bay, on Spitsbergen’s northwest coast, around 600 miles from the North Pole. Across the bay lies the small scientific research station of Ny Ǻlesund – the most northerly permanent settlement in the world.[…..]
Sticks and Stones
We came ashore this morning in Trughamna Bay, at the mouth of Isfjorden, on a stony beach exposed by a rapidly retreating glacier. When Cape Farewell sailed here in 2007 the ice stretched right down to the water and along[…..]
