80 00.00 N, 11 00.00 E

 

Last night was very peaceful surprisingly however we had hitch hikers on the anchor chain within the ton of kelp that came up with the anchor - we had 5 'great spider crabs', (Hyas Araneaus, which are only 10cm long actually) within the fecund growth attached

to our Delta anchor. There being no wind we motored for an hour round to Vignohamn where there are many cultural remains to be found dating from the 17th Century: blubber ovens and open graves, including a collapsed airship shed from one of the many

attempts to fly dirigibles to the North Pole. To make the hydrogen necessary for the ship to fly, great quantities of iron filings and acid were shipped in - the remains of these works and great heaps of iron filings could also  be seen. Further up the shore a memorial has been erected to the memory of Andree's failed attempt to reach the north pole by balloon in 1897; a large anchor sitting atop a cairn.

 

The site also housed the first luxury holiday home for wintering over in Svalbard for pleasure (1887). We found the remains of Lord Arnold Pike's cottage - a purpose built 4 room dwelling with an old Victorian fireplace setting propped up outside. However we had to be very vigilant while ashore since the threat of bears here was much greater than in more civilised places in the south of Svalbard. Indeed we found several bits of evidence of bear feeding sites - the chewed backbone of a seal and cartilage remnants distributed across the beach in various places.

 

Lunchtime found us all in the mood for cooking. Peter made a spectacular curry (using at least half of the curry powder that had come

free with the boat originally, in 2006). Hannah made her first ever bread from scratch from James’ pinch of this and splash of that method and Fiona attempted a cake without any idea of the correct quantities of baking soda and sugar.

 

Passage planning for the rest of our time north has necessitated some tough decisions. We have now run out of time to get to Moffen given the weather conditions (lack of wind and too much distance to make unless we motoe for 36 hours,which we could but seems pointless). We compromised on our original plan to make 80 north by setting off out to sea towards the pack ice we could vaguely make out in the distance across the northern horizon. Such is the angle of dip the fluxgate compass in the autopilot struggled and failed to even keep a course to a programmed way point such that we ended up manually steering through the light airs (with a little assistance from the engine). The day was eerie and back lit through clouds, the ice cap across the north pole was visible as we switched off the engine and ghosted across our line, 80.00.00. Magic. So of course the bottle of champagne (thanks to Eddy) was broached to celebrate the furthest north that any of us have ever reached.

 

 

We turned round and attempted to sail with the cruising chute while heading back to Svalbard to anchor in Fair Haven for the night. This morning sees us debating a return to Magdalenefjord for a walk. We hope there will be better visibility there so we can manage safely the threat of bears. We had planned to walk to the top of Ytter Norskoyane this morning but it’s in cloud.

 

A word on this - night no longer has any meaning - we have apparently random temperature changes accompanied by increasing or decreasing levels of brightness such that time is also slipping away from us. Getting to sleep is hard for some of us and all of us have increased appetites to stave off the cold. The provisioning for the trip was calculated on Temperate Latitude feeding patterns and we are now eating more of our pasta and rice stores to bulk up our intake. We have lemons to see off scurvy!