Friday 13th July Longyearbjen to Trygghamna
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Sun 15 Jul 2012 16:35
Most of today was spent in handling chores and calls home or to the office.
There was another (smaller) cruise ship parked across the back of the boat
this morning. Our neighbours on the yacht next door explained that although
it was leaving around midday there was another one scheduled in just after.
For this reason we split up the tasks and made sure we moved off the yacht
pontoon in the time gap available, anchoring just off the fuel dock in 17
metres of water.
Fuelled, watered and provisioned we left Longyearbjen around 5pm for the
small inlet of Trygghamna some 30 miles away at the entrance of Isfjord. It
is marked by a famous mountain with a distinct shape; the Alkhornet - a bird
cliff of great renown. It's also the home to the Arctic foxes who have made
extensive burrows beneath the cliffs. Nesting time provides the foxes with
food for their new litters.
The wind once again was dead in our faces and very light so that we had to
motor. Because of the lack of laundrette facilities in Longyearbjen
this gave us a chance to wash clothes in hot water and generally clear away
all the extra stuff lying about like survival suits and wet weather gear.
We arrived late in Trygghamna - one solitary yacht had anchored ahead of
us. This is where Friday 13th bit us squarely in the backside. While setting
the
anchor the entire electric system overloaded and blew the main 150 Amp fuse.
The cause was the windlass which had jammed. This was a bit annoying since
the windlass is protected by an 80A circuit breaker so the 150A fuse should
not have blown.
We set the kedge out the stern after Hannah and Peter did sterling duty
paddling round
Awelina to get soundings of our depth; Trygghamna shelves very steeply and
only a few metres horizontal distance makes the difference between anchoring
in a depth of 10 metres or 40. In fact because of this Trygghamna is not a
good anchorage at all.
James fixed the fuse by soldering a 100A fuse across the terminals of the
blown 150A fuse since we didn't have en exact replacement. Then James and
Peter winched up the main anchor and chain by hand. This put us in a
perfectly good position with all systems restored to full working order and
us lying to an anchor we could handle without electric windlass, so we made
supper and turned in for the night.