Position of NOA-Svalbard camp 1: 78º46.540’N, 10º56.254’E

No time to write yesterday. At 8 am we met up at the harbour where the captain and owner of M/S FARM, Stig Henningsen, was already waiting for us. After stowing the remaining equipment and a group photo in front of the ship we sat immediately course for Prins Karls Forland. The weather was still calm but cloudy.

Farm isn’t a racing boat directly, so the journey to Ferskvassbukta on the eastern side of Prins Karls Forlandet took about 10 hours and we arrived there about 6 o’clock in the evening. In the late afternoon we got rain showers which continued all night long. To reach our intended camp site in Richardlaguna we had to pass the narrow entrance to this rather large laguna and drive another 3 to 4 km on the laguna. With a tidal difference of about 1.7 m, currents are very strong, and at our arrival the outgoing current met the ocean swell and wind waves coming up Forlandsundet, resulting in a large area around the entrance of the laguna that we did not want to navigate with a fully loaded Zodiac.

Thus, we landed all our gear on the gravel bar which divides the laguna from the sea, waved Stig goodbye and waited for the water to calm down. This took a long time… Finally, we decided to get the empty Zodiac into the lagoon and carry all the stuff 50 m across the gravel bar to shuttle it from there to the campsite. This mission took quite long since we first had to find a way through the lagoon at low water, but at 1 am it was completed. A nice spot close to the water was the only level and not swampy ground. We spent the rest of the night with establishing the camp – put up tents, set up the trip-wires for polar bear protection, etc. At 6 am we went to bed for about 8 hours of sleep. The rest of the day is dedicated to organizing ourselves, the camp, cleaning guns and preparing for the first field days.

Arrival at Richardlaguna. Photo: Henning Lorenz

In the late afternoon, the wind was changing direction to northerly. We hope this cold wind bring us sunny weather, but presently it does not look like it.

Henning Lorenz, Uppsala universitet