Forlandet and Isfjorden

Saturday was the last day at sea. We sailed back and forth in Forlandsundet and Isfjorden, inspecting several ports of refuge. In this area the mobile phone coverage is OK, and in the area around Barentsburg we were also connected to a Russian mobile phone system. However, we were reminded by the crew at KV Svalbard that using this system might is expensive.

The discussion of the day was on the increasing number of sail boats visiting Svalbard. The coast guard is worried about this situation. The sailors are often experienced and has sailed for several years in more southerly waters, but are inexperienced in the extreme conditions they face in Arctic waters. The sail boats are usually not properly equipped, they have poor communication euipment and they are not experienced enough to understand and see all signs in the information they actually do have. Also, not having AIS, they are not visible to anyone, and white sail boats are hard to catch sight of in this environment. The coast guard would prefer that all vessels, large and small, have an 'arctic equipment package' onboard.

This was the last working day at KV Svalbard, and I will take the opportunity to say thanks again to all of you at KV Svalbard who have kindly assisted me whenever I needed help. Thanks also for sharing stories with us. I'm really impressed of the work you do, how you do it and your sincere efforts to maintain the safety at sea.

Thanks also to Tor Einar and Morten for supporting the project, and thanks Per Kyrre, Halvard, Rakel, Ingrid, John Morten, Tore, Morten and Dag for a nice working week at KV Svalbard. I look forward to see you again at a later occasion. Last, but not least, thanks to all of you that have visited the blog!

Below you can se some more pictures from the trip. The second picture is from Barentsburg. The third shows extreme sports at KV Svalbard...We, the so called 'Coastal Administration Team' received a well earned 5th place....:-) The last picture shows two good helpers from KV Svalbard :-)

Bye bye,

Beate

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Svalbards national day, 14th of August!

Congratulations Svalbard! The 14th of August is the national day of Svalbard. 85 years ago Svalbard was included in the Norwegian territory, the law of Svalbard was established and the Norwegian flag was hoisted on Skjæringa in Longyearbyen. This was 5 years after Norway had obtained sovereignty at Svalbard through the Svalbardtreaty, on Febuary 9th 1920.

More pictures:

KV Svalbard's light weight boat (sjøbjørn) has been in action every day.
Sjøbjørn
Preparing for a cold experience...
John Morten and Rakel are documenting and discussing
Rolv Enger, port captain in Svea
Meeting with Store Norske

Friday 13th...

This morning I woke up with a pleasant voice streaming out of the loud speakers: "Good morning everyone, it's a beautiful morning, Friday 13th, but nothing bad will happen....". I turned around, fell asleep again, overslept and missed breafast. However, by luck I was on the bridge right in time to run communication tests before KV Svalbard left the first of today's port of refuge, Rechercherfjorden.

Around lunch time KV Svalbard's helicopter picked up two representatives from Store Norske (SNSK) in Svea, Nils Bjerg Tokheim and Rolv Enger. Nils is marketing manager at SNSK and Rolf is port captain, with 40 years experience from sea. Actually, it's mandatory for every large vessel sailing into Svea to be assisted by two tug boats. One tug boat is measuring sea currents, while the other keeps a slack line connected to the vessel, ready to tow it away if it's "taken" by the current. Akselsundet is at the inlet of Van Mijen fjorden, where the Aksel island (Akseløya) is stretching from one side of the fjord to the other. Leaving two "openings" at each side, with heavy currents giving heavy navigational challenges. Still, there has never been any large accidents, thanks to SNSK who takes responsibility for safety at sea. Thanks to Nils and Rolv for assisting us in the evaluation work on ports of refuge!

There has been some action today as well. Around dinner time KV Svalbard received a request for assitance from a couple of grounded sailors. Their sail boat had dropped the anchor, and drifted towards land. They could not get off without assistance. Their voices seemed rather relieved when we overheard the conversations on VHF :-) By the way, they had observed polar bear.....I wonder when we will see them...? Are they hiding?

The last but not least happening of today was cold and surprising. We went through a dubvious rituale in order to get acknowledged as arctic sea sailors!!!! The criteria is to have crossed the 80 degrees north line. Dark ship, dark men, sea water from the Barents Sea....however, we are still alive, everyone of us, and we also received a certificate which I guarantee I will bring with me if there is a next time at KV Svalbard. Pictures will be put on the blog when they are available.

By the way: Ingrid has been in Croatia, not Rakel...Sorry :-)

Here are some other pictures from today:

Polar bear, German kayak padler and oil spill (?)

Seeing walruses and whales yesterday made us believe that we would see polar bear very soon, but unfortunately; no polar bear in sight. At least not alive ones. This night although, two teams in light weight boats inspected the coast line, because another vessel had observed a dead polar bear. In such situations Sysselmannen tries to find the animal. Some times they bring it to Longyearbyen, and some times they take samples for research and for preventing environmental crime. However, they couldn't find it. It might have been eaten by one of its friends....

We have of course inspected ports of refuge and discussed potential conflicts today too. The status on communication links are the same as for the northern parts of Hinlopen; we have MF and HF connection via Isfjord radio, VSAT has been stable from west end of Freemansundet and Iridium is stable to a certain degree. (There are some drop outs and the package loss is rather high). We were in a potential situation where we could really demonstrate the nice effects of having broadband connections at sea: We thought we had discovered oil spill. A 1.5 nm line of some oily emulsion was reported from bridge. A team went out and collected water samples. It appeared not to be oil, but IF it had been oil, we were ready to perform an analyis ad hoc on the vessel. We could have downloaded AIS data* delivered by AISSat-1, the Norwegian AIS satellite which was put into orbit the 12th of July this year. This satellite orbits the earth around the poles, and reports AIS targets to land earth stations (and to the Norwegian Coastal Administration) approximately every 2nd hour. We could also have downloaded satellite images from KSAT, and by combining this information with an oil drift model from SINTEF we could have identified the source of the oil spill. And IF we had been able to identify the source, it's possible they had received a phone call from someone interested in keeping oil spill off the sea :-)

* AIS means Automatic Identification System, it reports identification data such as e.g. position, speed and ID of vessels. It's mandatory for SOLAS vessels over 300 gross tonnes, but often other vessels also install AIS.

The last keyword from the title of this blog post was the German kayak padler. He is now identified as a German freelance journalist, who has been padling around Svalbard for 7 weeks, whereof 5 completely alone...He had some problems with his eqipment and needed assistance from KV Svalbard. He's now safely onboard, and will travel with us to Longyearbyen. He has of course told us facinating stories of meetings with polar bears, 5 in total. One appeared to be agressive and 4 seemed friendly.... :-)

Today's interview object is Morten Ekker: Morten is 51 years old, lives at Stjørdalen, a few kilometers north of Trondheim (in my opinion a very nice place.... :-) ), works at DN - Directorate for nature management as senior advisor. DN is responsible for conservation of animal life and nature protection in Norway, including Svalbard. He participates in the process of port of refuge selection in order to ensure DN's interests are being taken care of. AND, Morten loves to photograph, I guess he has taken hundreds of pictures of animals, nature and helicopters. You can see two nice example below, of a northern fulmar and a kittywake. In the picture above you can see Morten on the left, in conversation with Halvard. Morten has also taken the picture of Kvalvågen, a port of refuge at Svalbard.

Pictures

Some pictures from the last days :-)

Hinlopen

I have to start the blog today with a very very very important message (my youngest son is 6 years old today): GRATULERER MED DAGEN JOAKIM'EN MIN!!!!! MAMMA ER VELDIG VELDIG GLAD I DEG!! KOS DEG MASSE OG HILS TOBIAS. STOOOOOR BURSDAGSKOS FRA MAMMA. (Og ja, jeg HAR kjøpt med noe fra Svalbard :-) ).

Today we are sailing southwards through Hinlopen. We have been north of 80 degrees (!) and it's snowing... It's a bit weird, several of us left the main land wit 20 degrees on Sunday, Rakel went from sunny Croatia to Svalbard within a few days, and today we are experiencing snow. Exotic? What was really exotic was the sight of walruses and whales. The north side of Svalbard has a rich wildlife/animal life, and we knew the chances for seeing them were good, but still, the sight of them was impressing. I will never forget. Pictures will come when we are within VSAT coverage again.

Another thing with the northern parts of Svalbard is the large number of cultural monuments. I was almost bewitched by Per Kyrre today, when he explained why Sorgfjorden was named Sorgfjorden, and why there is an old grave there. I will have to make a long story short: One day in 1693 there were 4 French marine vessels approaching Sorgfjorden. Two of them positioned themselves outside the fjord, while two of them sailed in an attacked a large Dutch whale hunter fleet. Around 20 whale hunters were able to run away in small rowing boats, a large number were killed and 11-12 were captured and taken as prisoners of war. Ludvig 14th had ordered this attack because he was at war with the Netherlands, and he wanted to hit their economy. A large part of Netherlands economy was dependent upon the whale hunting in the high north during that period. It's facinating! When we sail along the Svalbardian coast I get the feeling that it's so desolated that noone could possibly have been here before, but in reality there has been a lot of activity around the island for hundreds of years....

The discussions around the table have been a bit more lively today :-) The numerous cultural monuments, the rich animal life, the almost non-existence of detailed sea maps, ice conditions and poor communication infrastructure (MF, HF and Iridium)...there are a lot of considerations to take. However, it seems like they all can manage to be friends within the end of the day :-)

Today I would like to introduce you to Halvard: Halvard Pedersen is 34 years old (1976 was a good year... :-) ), he lives at Svalbard/Longyearbyen, working as an adviser in environmental protection at Sysselmannen. He 's been there for 4 1/2 years, and loves Svalbard for its fascinating nature. Actually, the day before he joined us at KV Svalbard he returned from another mission, where a team has been removing garbage from the beaches of Svalbard. This is something that is done every year, and many people participate. Halvard would like to send a message home: "Svalbard is nice, but even nicer when you are here , Marthe and Nora" :-)

Hasta la vista, you will hear from us again :-)

Signehavna, Regnardnesset, 14. juli breen, Magdelenefjorden

Today we have sailed through Forlandsundet, investigated three potential ports of refuge in Krossfjorden, two in Magdalenafjorden, one in Bjørnfjorden and in about three hours we will reach the last one for today. Magdalenefjorden is one of the most visited places on Svalbard, approximately 22.000 tourists every year. Per Kyrre Reimert from Sysselmannen is like a live history book, and tells us short but facinating stories about each location. There has been whalers and seal hunters since the 16th century at Svalbard. For each port it has been discussed how large vessels are possible to anchor up, is it possible to close the area with oil retention systems, are there any special sea animals or birds that uses the area for certain times of the year, what's the typical weather and ice conditions, cultural monuments, tourist attractions, navigational considerations, and last but not least, available communication infrastructure. Actually, most systems, including VSAT but excluding mobile GSM, worked rather well all the way up to Magdalenefjorden. Although, at the farther end of Krossfjorden we had only MF/HF and Iridium coverage. This is also the case from Magdelenafjorden and northwards. I have installed an Iridium OpenPort terminal on the vessel, and this terminal seems to work rather well, except for a few dropouts and it has low bandwidth capacity, so that's why you don't see any pictures on the blog today!

Rakel was a lucky girl today; she joined a team on a lightweight boat ("Sjøbjørn") to measure sea depths in Gullyfjorden. Rakel is 29 years old, from Mosjøen, living in Honningsvåg, working for the Norwegian Coastal Administration where she's responsible for the development of ports of refuge in Troms and Finnmark. On this trip to Svalbard she's responsible for taking photographs, register them with time, position and heading. She will also participate in conflict analyses. Like me she's fascinated of Svalbard and we both sincerely believe we have the best job in the world :-)

The work done on this trip is a part of the MarSafe North project, where MARINTEK is project manager, Kongsberg Seatex AS is prime contractor/project responsible, and the Norwegian Coastal Administration is the leader of work package 5 which includes the activities of port refuge at Svalbard. The main objective of MarSafe North is to identify the user requirements and technological possibilities to be able to perform safe and efficient operations in the High North. Take a look at www.sintef.no/marsafe for more information.

We are now approaching the last port of refuge for the day, so I have to go. That's all from KV Svalbard tonight, have a nice evening everyone at home :-)

KV Svalbard was even more delayed than firstly assumed because they had to assist a fishing vessel next to Bjørnøya. Instead we used the day at the Sysselmannen, discussing how to approach the port of refuge, and work procedures. As you can see from the picture; still happy and in a good mood :-) From left: John Morten Klingsheim (Norwegian Coastal Administration - NCA), Rakel Hagen Olsen (NCA), Tore Vedvik (pilot), Ingrid Lauvrak (NCA), Morten Ekker (Direktoratet for naturforvaltning), Halvard Pedersen (Sysselmannen), Per Kyrre Reimert (Sysselmannen). Dag Vongraven (Norsk Polarinstitutt) was "out of office" when this picture was taken, I promise to add a picture of him later on.


Around 21.15 we received a phone call from KV Svalbard, and we could finally go to Longyearbyen harbour! The evening and night was used for safety instructions and installations. Tests will start tomorrow morning.

Day 1

Finally, the day has arrived when I could go to Svalbard and Longyearbyen again. Look at the picture, this was taken at 23.30! The light is amazing, and we had a clear view while approaching the airport. With some assistance from helpful people and the bus driver I managed to get my heavy boxes loaded with test equipment and warm clothings on the airport bus, and reached hotel Radisson Blu Spitsbergen just in time to get some midnight snack :-) Taking off the shoes by the front door before entering the warm and cozy lobby makes it feel very homy! After a few minutes the "boss himself" showed up, John Morten Klingsheim from the Norwegian Coastal Administration. He has been here for one day already, preparing the voyage. KV Svalbard is a bit delayed, and we will probably not be able to start the sailings before 20.00 tomorrow evening. Instead we will use the day at Sysselmannen, and plan further activities. Tomorrow I will also add to the blog a description of why we are here! Now I have to try to ignore the daylight and get some sleep, it's 02.07. Sweet dreams everyone at home :-)