Just minutes ago a deer with two young fawns passed the shore by our house. We could the kids jumping around and following their mother for quite a while. They were far away and I didn’t want to go outside to avoid any disturbance. So I took some photos with my mobile through an old field glass. The image quality is abysmal, but hey – I got a photo!
When I woke up yesterday morning (28. April) and looked outside the window of my living room I was pretty surprised. I didn’t rain in the night, it had been snowing.
Round 15 cm of fresh snow had fallen within the last six hours and everything looked wintry again. In the centre of Tromsø however, 88 metres lower in elevation than my apartment only five cm of snow had fallen and the cars had smashed it to brown slush. What a difference!
Home again I watched a ptarmigan in the back yard. First it picked on a twig of a tree, then it dug itself into the snow and rested there for some hours. Couldn’t it see me behind the window pane or did it just ignore me? In the night it was gone.
Today I took my skis to work so that I could ski back home from the lake Prestvannet. This time the forecast was correct: we got a blue sky, the sun was shining at temperatures round +3 °C. At the harbour in the centre the view was quite spring-like.
Taking the bus from the center up to Prestvannet takes only 5 minutes, but there it is still winter season with snow depths round 90 cm. It’s astonishing what a difference in altitude of less than 100 metres can do.
Time to ski back, preferably not on the tracks but through the forests. After four kilometres on skis and 840 metres by foot I was home.
Today my friend Chris and I took a road trip to the island Kvaløya, Norway’s fifth largest island. It was snowing, but the weather forecast was promising. Our first stop was “Eidehandel” – a local grocery store – in Eidkjosen. The second stop was Tisnes to check for migratory birds. They weren’t many, it may be still too early, but we saw small groups of greylag geese and some Eurasian curlews. The latter ones are recognisable by their large bent beak. When I took some photos I realised how beautiful they are when flying.
We continued following the southern coastal road where we spotted a flock of smaller birds. Two friends on Facebook confirmed it: These are snow buntings.
We saw Eurasian oystercatchers on different places. At the bay Austeinvika I used the opportunity to take some photos. The forecast was correct. It had stopped snowing and the sun had came out.
From there it was not far to the island Sommarøya where we took a lunch break eating the food we bought at Eidehandel. The sky was blue but in the wind it was still chilly. I was glad about wearing a woollen sweater plus a winter anorak. When we were full we left the rest of the food in the car and took a stroll over the hills. Sommarøya is incredible in all seasons because of the combinations of shallow bays with turquoise water and sandy coral beaches and the view of the high mountains of Kvaløya and the islands around.
And if you send your drone into the air and take a photo from above you see, how ridiculously turquoise and clear the water is. Like in the Caribbean as long as you ignore the water temperature.
When I came home in the late afternoon it started snowing again.
| English | German | Norwegian |
|---|---|---|
| graylag goose | Graugans | grågås |
| Eurasian curlew | Großer Brachvogel | storspove |
| snow bunting | Schneeammer | Snøspurv |
| Eurasian oystercatcher | Austernfischer | tjeld |
Yesterday I was working from home in my flat in Tromsø when an outside movement caught my eye. A ptarmigan was passing by in the snow covered garden. It went to a birch tree, picked a bit at the branches and continued its lunch walk. That was a nice work interruption.
In the afternoon I was out for a walk. The small bog pond looked quite wintry but I wouldn’t cross it anymore.
The cross-country ski trails seem to be in a good shape. People are still skiing there but some wet areas beside the trails start thawing.
I passed the ski lodge – now closed for the saison – and went down the gravel road. The snow on the road looks grey and is no real snow anymore, but pure slush.
Today it was warm and rainy and more rain is to come tomorrow. Then we may get some snowy days again. I adore snow, but I also love spring. I’m curious when the snow will have melted away in Tromsø this year and when birches start getting their green leaves.
Annika and I are in Obbola, my “home home”. In the morning we get visitors. Three deer stand in our garden – always alert. Are they happy, that much of the snow is gone?
In my lunch break I am kayaking round the island Bredskär. That’s just 3 km. There is still some ice round the rocks at the shore, but much snow and ice has melted away the last weeks. What a warm winter.
Annika and I take the car to Tromsø. We will make a stopover in Jokkmokk, because the total distance is almost 1000 km. Hejdå home home!
In warm and sunny weather we head northwards to Piteå and then northwest to Jokkmokk. Now we are north of the Polar Circle.
In Jokkmokk we meet a good friend and take a walk round the lake Talvatissjön. Around the sun a halo appears .
After a good sleep in the hostel Åsgård Annika and I continue our car trip. Gällivare, Kiruna, Abisko. Torneträsk – the 6th largest lake in Sweden – is still completely frozen. Good for recreation such as skiing.
Parts of the road were closed some days ago. You can still see some remains of the snow storm.
Some weeks ago it would have been impossible to drive from Jokkmokk to Tromsø in daylight. Anyhow two days ago astronomical spring has started and the days are as long as everywhere. After hours of driving the sun is low but visible. It illuminates the beautiful clouds. And then we arrive at our apartment in Tromsø, my “work home”.
On Sunday the weather gets nasty. Max temperature: +9 °C and wind gusts up to 23.5 m/s. Annika and I take a promenade anyhow. With spiked shoes because some of the ways are just bare, wet ice and the friction is next to zero. We arrive at home before the rain. Good luck.
On my way to work I spot the first spring flowers in front of the Tromsø Cathedral. I could believe in spring …
… but do know the forecast and it is correct: Snow, snow, snow on the next day. So it looks like in the morning outside of the apartment …
… and so in the afternoon, when I walked home.
So we did not solely travelled between countries but also between seasons. Anyhow I hope for some more winter days (or weeks), before my seasonal clock will jump to spring mode. Perhaps in mid-May?
Just some photos from Obbola in the last days.
A flock of fieldfares in our rowan tree ❦ an icy morning by the coast ❦ sunlit ice fog hovering above the bay Vitskärsudden ❦ three roe deers eating rowan berries, leftovers of the fieldfares’ meal.
| English | German | Swedish | Norwegian |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fieldfare | Wacholderdrossel | Björktrask | Gråtrost |
Annika and I were in Norddeich, the coastal district of Norden (“north”) in East Friesland, Germany the last days. The word “Norden” definitely qualifies that place for getting an article in my blog way-up-north.
Many streets of Norddeich have the theme “north” in their names. Am Nordkap (At the North Cape), Nordlandstraße (Northland street), Nordlichtstraße (Northern Light Street). Guess what, I like the names! Partly from my Scandinavian point of view, partly because I am from Northern Germany and therefore a “Nordlicht” (a nickname for people from Northern Germany) by myself.
Some photos from Tuesday, 10 September, the day of our arrival:
Yesterday on Wednesday, 11 September Annika and I rented e-bikes and took a cycle tour to Greetsiel. The weather was quite nasty for early September: strong gusty winds, hailstorms, cloudbursts and even a thunderstorm. And all that at temperatures around 10–11 °C. Kudos for the e-bikes! Without electrical motor support we wouldn’t have managed it against the wind.
It’s a long way to travel to Norden from our places. Round about 2800 km from Tromsø, my “work home” and still 1900 km from Obbola, my “home home”. But I think, I’ll visit Norddeich again some other time.
This article is part of the series “2024-08: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.
It is the 14th day of our Fram Strait cruise. We are on our way back to Longyearbyen on Svalbard. After many grey and foggy days we finally have got nicer weather since yesterday and so I am standing on the “heli deck” looking for animals to take pictures of. I cannot see any whales and the few puffins that I spot are too fast and too far away. So I take photos of the seagulls that effortlessly accompany the ship.
Since today it is possible to see land again in the distance. Not Greenland like a week ago but Prins Karls Forland, an elongated island which is the westernmost island of the Svalbard archipelago.
I have gone inside again until I see a message popping on our WhatsApp group:
Dolphins just in front of the ship now
I grab my photo bag, hurry to the heli deck again and see a school of dolphins on the starboard side. Most of them swim underwater but again and again a group of these beautiful sea mammals come out of the water. With my big telephoto lens I try to take pictures of the dolphins. The result: a lot of pictures of sea water. They are just too fast for me and my lens. But I’m lucky. Once I manage to guess correctly and get a photo of two dolphins (and a third one immersed).
Originally we wanted to reach Svalbard one day later but a lot of things have been done faster without the presence of sea ice. Mooring recoveries are simpler, CTD casts are easier and so is the ship’s navigation – no search for leads needed. Therefore we will arrive one day earlier, which is today. While I’m having breakfast we are already in the fjord Isfjorden. At 9 o’clock we have arrived in the city port of Longyearbyen.
After lunch I leave the ship and stand on land again. I walk into town and go to Svalbardbutikken, the local supermarket. We still live on board and get our meals there, but I want to have chocolate! And I get it.
We all have stayed on board overnight as well. The cabins are free (and paid) and so there is no need to find some expensive last-minute accommodation in Longyearbyen.
My plane to Tromsø will depart at 14:40. I interrupt my work and leave the ship once more to take some pictures. It is sunny again but Svalbard looks pretty brown and dirty in summer.
Then it was time to say good bye to the crew and the other participants. Car to the airport – checking in the baggage – security. And some hours later I sat in the airplane to Tromsø now leaving also Svalbard and the research ice breaker Kronprins Haakon behind.
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the data work is done,
When the budget’s lost or won …
This article is part of the series “2024-08: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.
For days we wondered, will we ever have an ice station on this Fram Strait cruise in open water? But then at 14° 21′ W, 79° 02′ N we found a large ice floe to work on. Shortly after nine o’clock I finally was on the ice again!
But I wasn’t here to take snapshots but to fly drone and to take a lot of photos from above.
I had issues with the drone from the Polar Institute, so I fetched my private one. First I had to calibrate some sensors, especially the compass and then I put the drone into the air and made some photos to check the image exposure. Ok, looks pretty good.
Now I flew the drone in a rectangular zig-zag pattern. That’s a bit tricky, because the drone is positioned by GPS while the ice flow is drifting. Since I wasn’t sure if I covered every part of the ice station I flew a second round. The single photos look like these:
Before going on board I took a couple of photos on the ice.
On board I uploaded the photos first into my laptop and then into the program OpenDroneMap that would stitch the photos together and add geographical information. And then it was 11:30, lunch time!
After lunch I went up on the bridge on deck 8. Together with two others I was observing my segment checking for polar bears, cracks in the ice and weather. There were several polar bears around but all were further away. I also had a VHF to keep track on the people on the ice. I had two shifts, 12:30–13:15 and 14:00–14:45.
After my second shift I got to know that we had a polar bear in front of the ship. So one of the bears that we had observed for hours had finally decided to pay us a visit. That meant of course that all people had to leave the ice. On the helicopter deck many people were around to watch the bear.
And there it was – a surprisingly white curious fellow that examined our ship. Did it smell the cake?
In the meanwhile OpenDroneMap finally created a properly rendered orthophoto. I was relieved because I was not sure if my drone photos were sufficient. This is an excerpt:
In the afternoon I had fixed the issue with the other drone. At 19:00 I would have another opportunity to go onto the ice to re-calibrate and test it. Our ice visit was however postponed because another polar bear was paying a visit. It looked much thinner than the other one, but on the other side the fur was wet. So photo shooting again. It surrounded the ship and then stopped, laid down onto its stomach, pushed itself forward with its furry feet and then rolled in the snow before it continued its walk.
We had to wait some time but then the ice was clear and I had time to test the drone on the ice. It worked. Hopefully I would be able to use it on the second ice station on the next day but the forecast does not look promising. Too much wind.
I shot a drone selfie and then I was ready to go on board. I just had to put my hand into one of the polar bear paw prints for size comparison.
The bear won!
This article is part of the series “2024-08: Fram Strait cruise KPH”.
I am sitting in a plane heading north. Tromsø lies behind, the plane goes to Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on Svalbard. If everything goes according to plan I’ll be on board of the Norwegian research icebreaker Kronprins Haakon two days from now to join a scientific cruise to the Fram Strait between Svalbard and Greenland.
Eight other participants are in the same plane, there are not so many flights to Longyearbyen. The rest will arrive tomorrow or has been joining already the previous cruise. We wait for the luggage and then for the “Maxitaxi“ that brings us to our different accommodations. I check in at Gjestehuset 102 and start a photo tour back to the center.
In August the town looks brown. It’s brown water, brown mountains and brown dust everywhere. As a photographer I prefer winter. Longyearbyen lies by the fjord Adventfjorden and there lies the German research icebreaker Polarstern that I visited in Tromsø three days ago.
It is windy but surprisingly warm with temperatures round 19 °C. Later I learn that the maximum was 20.3 °Con this day, the warmest August temperature measurement ever. I stroll around and go to the huge supermarket to buy some goodies. Then I head to the beach again to take some more photos. At 18:30: dinner time with nine of the cruise participants. After that I walk the 2.3 km back to the guesthouse. And take some more photos in the evening light.
Before the cruise many things are on hold. When will the ship arrive? When are the first scientists allowed on board? Is my help needed? When is the flare gun training for the ice people? And so on. Let’s wait and see.
KPH has arrived in the morning but only a few selected scientists were supposed to go on board to get a handover. So I have time to stroll around again – it is still warm and sunny – and take some more photos while constantly checking our WhatsApp group for plans being updated. And I meet some of my colleagues that joined the previous cruise.
In the evening we have another dinner, this time with all 19 participants. That is quite a small team this time, there are 35 berths on the vessel. We have pizza and the first opportunity to get to know each other. What a nice and interesting team I am allowed to work with for the next two and a half weeks :-) !
Today is the day. I was already in town and bought a woollen sweater that I wanted to buy for years. Then at 13:00 the first group of people gets a ride to our swimming research platform – Kronprins Haakon. Welcome back. At 13:15 I have boarded, at 15:00 I have checked in. I have got the very same room as on the first cruise two years ago. It’s on deck 3 in the bow and when there is ice, it is shaky, loud and noisy. I love it! Arctic lullabies. This time I have it eben for me alone. That’s luxury!
At 16:00 we get a safety briefing. After that I fetch my safety boots and my survival suit. Will I ever wear it on the ice on this cruise? At 17:00 we have our first dinner. Salmon and rice – delicious. Ice cream as dessert. And at 18:19 I realise that we have left port. Now we will be on our way west.
I will work with a software project and I want to join the sea ice team. The ice situation however is doubtful. Last year there was so much ice, that navigation was a real issue, not its the absence of ice that can lead to problems for the ice people. But as on each cruise – let’s wait and see.
Anyhow I’m lucky and happy to be on tokt – on cruise – again!
I decided not to blog regularly while being on the cruise. There is just too much going on and too much work to do. Anyhow I may show some photos in a few days. Let’s wait and see.