Happy Easter!!

AB-204 Field course

Bearded seals in the harbour

Icebreaker party at UNIS 

Scooter trip to Templefjord to watch the sunset

Scooter trip to the frozen boat in the sea ice in Templefjord

Tunabreen 

Karen on a wee trip to Pyramiden (abandoned Russian mining town)

Row, row, row your boat!

Hiked up to gruve 2

It was alot quicker coming down!

 Karen's delicious hot crossed buns

A wee bon fire 11pm 

Bon fire at 3am and the sun is already up

Only a couple of weeks left till we have 24 hours day light!!

A trip to the sun, Ta Sjansen annual sledge race and a wee trip to Russia....

The sun was due to arrive in Longyearbyen on Friday the 8th, so we took a trip to meet it the day before....

And we saw some very tame wildlife on our travels...

We knew about the sledge race for months, we planned our tropical-pineapple-sledge for weeks, we talked about going outside to assemble our (less fanciful) human-pile-sledge for hours, we tied a couple of sledges together in minutes......I only wish I could say we completed the race in seconds.....

Needless to say, we didn't receive first place (or any other place for that matter), but we weren't last, and I personally think we were the most enthusiastic...

(We even made it into the local paper! :) )

To top the weekend off, we took our new scooter (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) on a wee trip to Barentsburg.  It was beautiful conditions for our first drive, blazing sunshine, relatively warm and no wind. But when the sun goes down and the sky is still light, driving a scooter, surrounded by a blanket of white terrain, is one of the most surreal experiences of my life.  It must be similar to driving across a blank piece of paper in the wind; white on all sides, no sense of up nor down, no points of reference and absolutely no idea of what lies ahead! Honestly, I'd like to see The Stig do better.

A few photo stops on the way..... 

Still learning....

I fear I have become a little blasé about life in the Arctic. So many things that were once shocking have now become the norm. Temperatures below -20°C are normal, looking out the window to a complete white-out merely makes me reconsider my clothing for the day, stepping on what looks like flat ground and falling into waist-deep snow barely breaks my stride.

So before leaving the house today I checked the little stick with numbers (I fear that my English is diminishing with all these foreigners!) and it told me that today was a balmy -22°C, I glanced outside and saw a gentle breeze blowing a little bit of powder snow about, so nothing dramatic.  My nonchalant attitude led me to dress in normal clothes plus a down jacket, just one face mask, a hat and a scarf.  Sadly my look out the window was deceiving, hiding the 20m/s gusts from my eyes, after no more than 5 minutes outside I had brain-freeze and hat to improvise (that one's for you Paddy ;) ) with my poor choice of clothing....

  

One thing I am certainly not blasé about (and I think it will take a lot to change that) is the return of the sun!  I can't take credit for this photo but it's so stunning I couldn't not share :) .....

Svalsat

Me, Karen & Rosie on a trip to SvalSat as part of AB-203 Arctic Environmental Management.

UNIS last Thursday enjoying the first hour of sunlight!!

Rosie & I got chatting to a local guy in Svalbar (Longyearbyen's very own Markie Dan's), when he found out Rosie was Scottish he asked if she could play the bagpipes and Rosie quickly responded 'yeah of course I'm Scottish'................much to Rosie's surprise ten minutes later the guy returned to the bar with his own set of bagpipes!! Needless to say the guy wasn't impressed when he found out Rosie couldn't infact play and he'd spent money on a taxi to go and collect them from his house!!

The weather has been pretty mild the past week but the forecast is predicting temperatures will be dropping to -29 on Friday, so I'm sure we'll have to get topped up on plenty of whiskey at Friday gathering to keep us warm before the long walk back to Nybyen!!

Things I love about living in Svalbard

·         Days with temperatures above -10°C are classed as mild.

·         Watching the mad Arctic fox that lives under the next barrack.

·         You can chill your drinks in under 10 minutes just by placing them on the windowsill.

·         After being here for 41 days I still haven't seen one drop of rain.

·         Finding an out of date sandwich on sale for £2.50.......BARGAIN !!!!!!!

·         When staying in the cabin you have to pee outside under the northern lights.

and best of all.......

·         going to class on my new scooter.

Things change fast in the Arctic everyday the sky is getting brighter and brighter. Now I can see what a beautiful place I am living in.

 

Semester 2

For this springs semester Ailsa and Sarah have returned to Scotland leaving me (Karen) to join the two Longyearbyen veterans from last semester, Rosie and Christine.

 

The local wildlife checking us out on our lunch time stroll to UNIS

The first week on Svalbard was really eventful, 6 days of safety training which involved many different events but the rifle range and sea ice rescue sections were by far the most enjoyable. 

 

A wee swim in the sea ice wearing nothing but a snow scooter suit makes Loch Etive feel like a tropical lagoon. 

The Polar Night

 

The midday view from barrack 11 towards town.

It is a strange experience living in a place that you have never seen in the daylight. I know there are more mountains out there but I still haven't seen them. 

The sun hasn't been seen on Svalbard since October but there is hope. 

Even in the short space of time I have been here there has been a noticeable brightening of the sky to the south around noon. It will be another 3 weeks before the sun breaks the horizon and another month after that before it is high enough to reach Longyearbyen itself. 

So what do you do in Longyearbyen during the polar night to keep yourself occupied?

You build beer-can towers obviously......

 

 

Rosie just can't contain her excitement ;-)