Ny Ålesund and Kongsfjord. May 2000. Part VIII

[Read the first part of this post here]
We were spending more time stuck in town. The landfast ice was clearing, but bits of the Arctic pack were finding their way into the fjord. Chunks of pack ice, having had a couple of years to accumulate, are bigger than the months-old pieces of landfast ice. Small bergs, and worse, giant rafts of bergy bits, were appearing. Visually, this could be brilliant. One small berg grounded itself by the harbour wall. For the few days it sat, we'd buzz by close as possible. Light reflected off the berg, veins of turquoise-ripple ice.

But even worn-out leftovers of pack ice demand respect. On what proved to be our last visit to our scarred seal, we rounded Blomstrandhalvøya to find a field of bergy bits between us and Ny Ålesund. About half way back, our progress was blocked. The wind was picking up. And we could see more ice moving into the fjord. We motored up to near the edge of the ice field, Sofie started picking our way though, standing in the bow, looking through binoculars. By now, I'd some experience bashing mini-berg with the Buster. The trick lay in knowing how hard I could hit a berg, and how far up onto it I could drive the boat, without risking tipping over to the point where Sofie might fall out. Although nowhere near Christian's league, I gave some chunks the Christian treatment to get through to the next stretch of open water. We came to a couple of cul-de-sacs, surrounded by biggish pans of ice, needing bashing a little more than we'd like. Open water to Ny Ålesund finally appeared.

It was a long trip back.


May was nearly over, and Sofie still needed a few more recordings from males she knew. Our scarred male by Blomstrand was always accessible, but some other recording stations were becoming problematic. Broken pack ice was now entering the fjord daily, making anticlockwise transits in the currents. We'd spend long minutes shoving through ice to get near our recording stations. At one station, as close as we could get the fast ice edge was still a hundred yards or so from where we really needed to be. It felt like ages passed, navigating in through broken chunks of old pack, with a fair bit of shoving needed. After almost a month on the water, I was getting braver.


So we sat, Sofie went through her ritual of extracting the recorder from her fleece beneath her floater suit, hydrophone insertion, recorder on, notebook annotations. With no chance to do behavioural observations, so I grabbed the thermos, started pouring coffee. There was no wind, so we were making the most of one of our last possible days out. Broken chunks of pack were heading our way, adding to what we'd just pushed through. It seemed we had some time, but in the seconds I poured coffee, we were completely surrounded. No open water around our little boat (with tiddler engine!) at all. We looked at each other. We looked at the ice.

“Um – hon”, I said, “How much do you want this recording?”.

Sofie looked around again, bit her lower lip, “Not that much. This is really coming in. Shit.”.

“Yeah”. I sighed. “Okay, let's go”.

She coiled the hydrophone cable into its case, pulled the hydrophone from the water. “Okay, it's up” she said. We'd developed a habit of waiting until the hydrophone was clear of the water before starting the engine – we didn't want to risk cutting the hydrophone cable with the propeller. “I'll sort stuff out as we go”.

While she'd been retrieving the hydrophone, I'd been standing, looking for the best way out. I turned, grabbed the pullcord. “You clear?” I asked.

“Yep.”. Another little ritual – anyone who's ever been hit by the fist of someone pull-starting an outboard in a small boat will understand this one.

“You right?” A final ritual, I'd always check that Sofie was settled before knocking the outboard into gear. Starting to move a boat when someone's not ready is the easiest way to send them overboard.

“Yep. I've got your coffee”.


I clicked the outboard into gear, idled off towards a promising looking opening in the ice. Sofie handed me a coffee, wiped the hydrophone dry, put away her notebook, tucked the recorder back inside her floater suit. Then she grabbed the section of rope we'd tied to the bow for a handhold, stood, started pointing our way out between slurps of her coffee. We bumped our way through.

The open water to Ny Ålesund looked good when we found it.

That was one of our last trips on the little Buster. On land, ice was melting. Browns were replacing the whites of winter. Arctic terns started arriving, heralding warmer weather.


Apparently, summer in Ny Ålesund means more scientists. Cruise ships disgorge tourist hordes. See the Scientists At Work in the Arctic, Researching our Impact on the Environment! How much carbon does each tourist burn, coming to see what they're helping destroy? And the Arctic terns, who start arriving at the end of May, are obnoxious, pecking everyone on the head. What a mix.

Luckily for me, it's also when bearded seals stop calling, so Sofie's fieldwork was over.

On our way back to Australia, we stayed a couple of days in Tromsø, at the Polar Institute's flat for visiting scientists. It was the end of May, and the snow around town was more than head high. I had an interview for a position – seal population biologist - that had come up at the Norwegian Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture Research.

The next year, Christian shot a few of the male bearded seals in Kongsfjord, part of the Polar Institute's research program.

In May 2006, there was no landfast ice in Kongsfjord.