LOG BOOK Svalbard, July 16th – July 20th 2009

- 2 -

Map of Svalbard with possible landing locations. In the log book you will find numbers on the sections. Those num-bers refer to the locations on this map.

- 3 -

July 16th 18:00, 78°10’N

1. Longyearbyen This is a Norwegian settlement and the ‘capital’ of Svalbard. It’s named after an American John Munroe Longyear who started the first coal production in the Longyear valley in 1906. It was bought by a Norwegian mine company in 1916. Today the town is a modern town with almost every civilised facility you can imagine. The population is app. 2000 and increasing. Longyearbyen was originally a mining community, but now science and tourism are slowly taking over. After breakfast at the hotel we went sight-seeing in “town”. We visited the museum and the gallery. At 17:00 we embarked the MS Expedition and the Spitsbergen Adventure Cruise started. The ship sailed out of Adventfjorden and west towards Barentsburg, passing the former coalmining settle-ment Grumant and Colesbay.

21:00, 78°14’N

4. Barentsburg

Barentsburg is currently the only Russian settlement on Svalbard – there used to be two more; Grumant which closed down in the 1960’s and Pyramiden which closed down in 1998. Barentsburg is a mining settlement on the east side of Grønfjorden. The first house was built in 1912 by a Norwegian company and then sold to a Dutch company; The N.V. Nederlandsche Spitsbergen Compagnie. It was bought by the Russians – from the Dutch – in 1932. In Barentsburg there are currently app. 300 inhabitants. We went on a guided tour with Russian guide, and some joined a genuine and entertaining Russian folklore show, which the mine workers perform in their spare time. We also visited the hotel, and some of us tried the Russian Vodka.

July 17th 10:00, 79°30’N

50. Magdalenefjorden

Today we woke up on the way into Magdalenefjorden which is one of the best known fjords on Spitsbergen – it is a beautiful fjord with jagged mountains. These are said to be the moun-tains Wilhelm Barents first saw when he discovered Svalbard in 1596 and named the biggest island Spitzbergen (Pointed Mountains) after them. Entering the fjord a peninsula reaches out on the south side. The outer part of the peninsula is a small hill. This is Gravneset where Dutch whalers from NW Spitsbergen came to bury their dead in the 17th and 18th century. Today stone gatherings and wooden coffins remain from the around 130 graves. As we arrived, another cruise ship, Costa Luminosa, had already anchored up nearby. They had a landing on Gravneset as well, but stayed on the beach while we proceeded to the remains of centuries-old blubber ovens. This is where blubber from whales was melted and distilled into oil. The guides told us about the whaling history on Svalbard while we had a walk towards the Gully glacier. The Governor on Svalbard – Sysselmannen – has two park rangers on duty here during the summer to take care of the cultural heritage, and the environment in the area. Some of the bravest guests on board took a swim at the beautiful beach; they ran quickly into the water and very quickly back up again!

- 4 -

16:00, 79°40’N

Sørgattet, Smeerenburgfjorden

We then went through Sørgattet – a narrow strait connected to Smeerenburgfjorden. We watched the spectacular mountains and glaciers around us while cruising up the fjord -this fjord that once was crowded with huge bowhead whales and hundreds of whale hunters. In the innermost part of Smeerenburgfjorden lies the Smeerenburg-glacier. This glacier has a spectacular front and is surrounded by beatiful mountains, making it a perfect place for a zodiac cruise. Even though there was a lot of wind further out in the fjord, the bay in front of Smeerenburgbreen lay calm and sheltered. Being at sea level and this close to both icebergs and birds, we got a magnificent cruise with a truly arctic atmosphere. The birds we saw in front of the glacier were eider ducks, arctic terns, black gulliemots, glaucous gulls, a lot of kittiwakes and even a few barnacle geese! As we drove back to the ship, the wind picked up but we took our time to have a closer look at an enormous iceberg! 21:00, 79°45’N

43. Raudfjorden

Raudfjorden is the westernmost fjord on the north coast of Spitsbergen. Several glaciers calve into this fjord and it’s often filled with ice from the glaciers. Raudfjorden means »Red Fjord« and is named so due to abundant red rocks in the region. Those are sandstone from Devon (app. 300-400 mill years ago) when Svalbard was a desert at 30ºN. One of Spitsbergen Travel’s trekking camps is situated at Alicehamna, and in the evening we exchanged trekking groups here.

July 18th 10:00 79°35’ N

42. Liefdefjorden-Monaco glacier

In the morning we sailed towards Woodfjorden while looking out for wildlife. During breakfast we spotted a walrus which was playing in the water just in front of the bow. Afterwards we spotted our first whale, a minke whale. But there was more wildlife to come: suddenly a polar bear, the most anticipated animal of the cruise, was spotted on Reinsdyrflya, walking in the same direction as we were sailing. Thus we could follow its every move for a long time as it walked over the tundra and then began to swim. While sailing further into Woodfjorden and Liefdefjorden we saw even more animals, everything from minke whales and seals to abundant sea birds. As we reched the inner part of Liefdefjorden we saw that there was no more sea ice at all, thus this was the very first cruise this summer taht we came close to the Monaco glacier. In front of the 7 km glacier front we had lunch. After lunch we sailed out towards Worsleyhamna.

42. Worsleyhamna 79°35’ N We arrived at Worsleyhamna in the afternoon and anchored up. A polar bear was spotted on land

- 5 -

and the landing was delayed as the guide team went asore to make sure the bear had left the area. Eventually we started the landing and paid a visit to an old trapper cabin built by the famous norwegian trapper, Hilmar Nøis in 1924. The cabin, which is called “Villa Oxford”, was made from left-overs of crates containing an airplane which was used during a research-expedition on Svalbard. From there we went for a walk to have a closer look at the flora and fauna on the vast plain called Reinsdyrflya. Once everyone was back on board we headed north, out of Woodfjorden and towards 80 degrees North!

19:00, 80°N Even during dinner Woodfjorden proved to be teeming with wildlife as we passed a bearded seal resting on an ice flow. The drift ice turned out to be rather open so that we managed to pass the 80°N parallel after dinner, and accordingly this was celebrated on the aft deck with a toast. The North Atlantic is in fact the only place on the planet where you can be almost certain to pass the 80th parallel with a ship – this far North the northern hemisphere is mostly ice-covered and at 80°S you will hit a continent. An interesting thought is that there were hardly any other people between M/S Expedition and the North Pole at this time!

July 19th 10:00, 78°50’N

57. Ny-Ålesund

Ny-Ålesund is the world’s northernmost community. As we came onshore we went on a guided tour in town. Ny-Ålesund is a former mining village which has become an important international research centre - mainly on the atmosphere and ozone layer but also geological, biological and glacial research is carried out here. Downtown Ny-Ålesund

you will find a small centre with a shop, a post-office and a museum. The English whale hunter Jonas Poole discovered the first pieces of coal on the riverbank on the south side of the Kongsfjord in 1610. Another three hundred years were to pass before commercial exploitation on the coal deposits commenced. The first mining period was 1910–1929 and the mines got closed down because of economical prob-lems. Ny-Ålesund was the focal point for the world’s attention several times during the 1920’s. In 1925 Roald Amundsen attempted to reach the North Pole from Ny-Ålesund with the seaplanes N24 and N25. In 1926 Amundsen returned to Ny-Ålesund, accompanied by the American Lincoln Elsworth and the Italian Umberto Nobile, to set out on a joint expedition with the airship “Norge”. This expedition was a success. The airship flew over the North Pole as planned and landed in Teller, Alaska. From 1945 until 1962 we experienced the second mining period. But the problem with the coal layers in Ny-Ålesund is that they are almost vertical and gases develop in the mines. 70 miners have lost their life in the mines of Ny-Ålesund and the worst accident of them all happened November 5th 1962. Late at night that day there was a big explosion in the Esther Mine and 21 miners lost their life. A committee made an investigation and they concluded that the Norwegian state should have been more concerned about the safety in Ny-Åle-sund. Since Kings Bay was a state enterprise the public blamed the government. In August 1963, Prime Minister Gerhardsen and his government resigned as a result of this tragedy. Research started in Ny-Ålesund in 1964 and during the 1990’s research increased from 4,100 man-days in 1990 to 10,031 in 2000. Each year scientists from at least fifteen nations run more than 120 research projects.

- 6 -

14:00, 78°58’ N

56.Blomstrandhalvøya

At the north side of Blomstrandhalvøya you can see The Blomstrand Glacier. In fact, Halvøya means peninsula and actually people used to think it was – but as the glacier retreated, it revealed sea between the glacier and the Blomstrandhalvøya, indicating that it had never been a peninsula. On the other side of the Blomstrand Glacier – on the main land – Spitsbergen Travel’s second trekking camp is located right at the beach with a view towards the calving glacier. Here we once more exchanged trekking groups. After a delicious barbeque for lunch, we went for a zodiac cruise in front of the Blomstrand glacier. Here some of us got great pictures of another spectacular glacier front and a small “new-born” island in front of the retreating ice wall.

20:30

Farewell gathering We gathered with the ship’s crew and the guides for a farewell ‘ceremony’. Certificates were handed out for passing the 80ºN latitude, and the true heroes among us received certificates proving that they took a swim in the chilly arctic water! During the evening we will sail southwards. We will reach Longyearbyen at 02:00 tonight, and that is the end of the Svalbard summer adventure for this time. Are you sad to leave Svalbard? Are you curious about what it is like in the winter? Grab a copy of our catalogue or visit www.spitsbergentravel.com. We hope to see you back again for another arctic adventure. The ship’s crew, the guide team and Spitsbergen Travel wish you a safe and pleasant journey back home. Best regards,

Cruise guides; Martin,Stine , Heiko, Sidsel, Andreas and Merete. Trekking guides: Ole and Anders, Astri, Bjørn and Cecilie, Karolina, Reto and Stephan.