Eric Brossier and France Pinzon du Sel, who have let their boat freeze in for the 3rd overwintering on Svalbard, went to Tromsø for a couple of weeks and needed someone to look after their beloved Vagabond, a 15.3m long boat designed for sailing in waters with ice. What luck for three Arctic-loving girls like Sanja (Finnish), Helle (Danish) and me (German).
Helle and I had an agreement to have a crew change in the middle of the 5-6 weeks that France and Eric would be gone. We are both in the end phase of our master's thesis writing and therefore couldn’t really afford to stay away from school too long. But none of us managed to say no to such a opportunity: living on the east coast for 2 to 3 weeks! The east coast of Spitsbergen is known for its beautiful glacier fronts in bays, polar bears, a colder climate than on the west coast due to a colder water masses, and its generally awesome landscapes. And it is remote, which is a large part of its appeal.
The first impression on coming down from the glacier to Ingelfieldbukta — the bay where Vagabond lies ‐ was overwhelming: the last dwindling light revealed a big glacier front about 5 kilometers wide, with the little boat lying sheltered in a mini-bay formed by the moraine and the seemingly endless ice-covered water of Storfjorden, right outside the bay. The real experience began after Helle and our two drivers for the crew change left the next day; the bay lay quiet and beautiful in the low light of the sun that was slowly making its way back after the polar night.
Blessed with good weather at least half of the time, we spent the days in a wonderfully relaxed and quiet way. The day always started with the weather observation, followed by breakfast and a bit of reading. After that we went on our daily trip by dogsled and ski, sometimes to make ice transects or to get ice for drinking water from a clean iceberg nearby, but mostly just for fun. The evenings provided time for reading, painting and talking.
Every day the sun went up a bit higher in the sky and the hours of light became longer. It is fascinating to follow the change of light every day and how much it seems to change the surrounding. Far away from LYB, we were closer to nature and could observe and realise many small things, which normally are forgotten or overlooked in the daily routines of a civilised, stressed life.
And it definitely was an experience to live that close together with another person. We did almost everything together for safety reasons. Through that we learned a fair bit about each other and not at least about ourselves, and how to compromise and be thoughtful enough to have a harmonic atmosphere most of the time.
We both would have liked to have stayed longer and we now understand why Eric and France want to stay in that place year after year. It is another life, another rhythm, dictated by nature, the weather and the ice. Being back in LYB and writing on my thesis makes these wonderful quiet weeks in the ice, with time for and with the dogs, trips and reading seeming far away and nearly like a dream!
Eike