Sarah Pedersen 13th July 2023
Following a very quiet and long sleep we woke up ready to see the enormous Lilliehöök glacier. Well as ready as we can be as we both seem constantly tired and able and needing to sleep for hours.
Our giant ice block from yesterday had shrunk significantly but had not moved closer to us as predicted. We got coffee and decided for breakfast on the go so we could get moving.
The glacier is so big and has the pretty blue colour that makes it look like a big emerald. The glaciers come in lots of different colours: some are less captivating as they look dirty from the mountain gravel, while others are white or pinkish like marble. But Sarah’s preference is the deep blue, that seems to come, when parts have just broken from them.
While looking at the big glacier we ate banana pancakes as our bananas are deteriorating really quickly and in a mysterious way by getting black on one side.
After this we had a slow trip to Ny Ålesund which is a really interesting town. It is the most northerly settlement in the world and there live between 40 and 150 people from all over the world. Most of them are researching in global warming. Previously it has been a mining town but that stopped after a big accident. It is also the place where they sent up an airship to fly across the North Pole to the US. The large tower with a ladder that was used to enter the flying blimp is still there.
When entering the town you will get attacked by the Arctic tern so this bird has now become the least favourite bird – just above the seagull. The 2 good things about the tern is that it supposedly never really attack but only fly very close while making laud and horrible noises and that it also behaves like this to the seagulls.
Today we are determined to sail with sail, as a little wind has been predicted by some on the forecast, so at the moment we are making only 3.5 knots and a lot of this speed is given to us by the current. Hopefully more will come.
