Worn, gray glacier ice plows past mountains
Ymerbukta’s high point, an esker at the foot of Esmarkbreen
Minuartia, maybe? Still blooming under the first fall snow during the first week of October.
Esmarkbreen and Ymerbukta
The face of Esmarkbreen
Deck of the tall ship Antigua
Northern lights play over Antigua’s bow
Iceberg on sand
Arctic Circle residents exploring
Ice and mountain
Bow and ice
Landscape number x. Brown and russet, gray and white, tundra and mountain.
Purple sandpiper
Tall ship Antigua at anchor in Ymerbukta
We left port yesterday afternoon with the motor but put up the sails quickly and fairly flew across the fjord. We helped with the sails – a token effort by the guests. Ropes everywhere, sails pulled up front to back and staysail in the bow. The wind was high and rough and almost everyone felt it. I did well outside but inside was pretty queasy. Eating helped and the food was good. I didn’t eat a lot and went to bed almost immediately.
Someone pounded on the door to say the aurora was visible. Lena (my cabinmate) and I got dressed and went out but there was little activity and after 10 minutes I went back to bed. By the time we went up for the aurora the crew had pulled down the sails and dropped anchor in a quiet arm of the fjord with a wall to protect us from the wind bombing out of the north. The water was calm, and the boat rocked gently for the night.
We did a landing this morning and a hike up the glacier edge. The grays and greens and blues are satisfying and intense. The glacier was growling and grumbling. Thunder came from within the glacier, massive rolling peals as it shifted and creaked into a new position. It calved audibly but we couldn’t see it from where we were, though we watched the wave from the calved iceberg cross the bay and wash up onto the shore.
The landscape is wide open and at the same time constrained within the walls of glaciers and the surrounding mountains. The beach is gravel and sand with gently lapping water. There is a tide, but it seems very small. Black guillemots in their winter attire were on the water and a few purple sandpipers along the beach. Two seals followed us when we first landed; they barked at us.
Ant-sized humans cross the gravel outwash plain at the foot of Esmarkbreen
Arctic Circle residents hike along glacier’s edge
Not known for my technical skills or my use of cutting-edge technology, I found some photography challenges in Svalbard. The cold, the instant fog-up when entering the ship cabin (which opened directly onto the always-steamy galley), low light, great distances, ship motion, focusing while wearing mittens (not to mention shooting while wearing mittens), snowfall, rain, bow spray, and wind along with a host of computer program and storage space issues left me reeling with the feeling that many of my photos would be utter failures. There were no second chances; ships keep moving and the sun never really rises.
What I didn’t expect was some of these problems contributing to more interesting photos. The pixilation caused by low light, a zoom lens, and a high ISO creates the illusion of watercolor in some. Others appear as line drawings, pastels, or Suminogashi prints. The photos have more texture and less detail. Sharp edges give way to soft brushstrokes and smudged impressions.
My analytical, sharp-edged mind concedes; maybe the challenges added up to brilliant success in an unexpected form.
The billion-piece puzzle of pixilated tallus slopes on Hellvetiafellet and the waning moon above Longyearbyen.
Isfjorden takes on the color of a glacier while the mountains hide against the sky and peak out from behind the clouds – paper marbling at its finest.
A curious seal peers through a Monet-style painting.
The jagged beach on Gåsøyane looks across to watercolor-softened mountains.
The pastel view from Gåsøyane.
Antigua at anchor in the Impressionist Billefjorden.
Another Monet, return from Svenskehuset, across the tundra, mud mountain, and rogue waves.
The post-fire-season fires rage in California not far south of where I am working at my desk. There is smoke in the air despite it being November. It is daylight from 0715hr to 1645hr. There is a waning moon, the mornings are frosted, the days full of sun. Where are the glaciers?
Svalbard is an experience scrambled in my brain, the light and time, the landscape, people, and water, have no edges, no differentiation. They are fluid, bleeding one into the other. My method of understanding seems to be via deconstruction. I look across my photos, writing, and thoughts for small things I can grasp — details, colors, scale. I hope the whole will reveal itself slowly in the shades of wonder it deserves.
In the meantime, I’m meditating on a few Svalbard blues.
The ocean’s surface shifted colors according to the sky’s mood, the sun’s position, and the motion of the waves. This best represents the fluidity of time, light, people, that lives in my mind.
An iceberg in front of Recherchebreen, the glacier from which it calved, glows with inner blue light during a snowstorm.
Once thought to be a peninsula, the retreating glacier Blomstrandbreen revealed an island instead. Antigua anchored between the sky and its reflections.
Icebergs and ice floes, deep water- to ice-blue, fraternize at the base of Wahlenbergbreen glacier.
Ice imitates frosty agate on the beach in Tempelfjorden.