This one was a hectic cruise! Started as one big mess due to the fog; the planes couldn’t land in Longyearbyen. Because of that, we had to wait quite a while for starting and then, as we had finally set off, we had to return in the evening in the hope that some more of our passangers would be on the evening flight. Fortunately they were, so we could run the tour with only one passenger missing.

When we finally had left town and the Isfjorden area, things calmed down a bit. Although it was only my third cruise this summer I have almost completely forgotten what we did, where we went on shore etc., but it was good! We the guides and leaders had a great time and I think we passed that over to the guests quite well… On the third day the fog finally lifted and we sailed between the icebergs in brilliant sunshine, something that sent some of the guests up to the seventh sky!!

Then, in the afternoon of that day (which was yesterday…), we went ashore on an island in Kongsfjorden called Blomstrandhalvøya. That means B. Peninsula, because people took it for one such while it was still partially covered by the glacier with the same name. In the last fifty years or so the glacier has retreated enormously, turning the peninsula into an island with a navigable sound where the glacier earlier lay. This island is made of lime- and dolostones and even some marble and it has been my dream and ambition to go there since I first came to Svalbard. You can imagine I was happy to finally set foot there!

But why would I want to go to this Gods forsaken little island? Well, the landscape is beautiful, the flowers in full bloom are pretty (and enormous for Svalbard standards, the Purple Saxifrage flowers measure 1.5 cm across!) and the birds nesting in the cliffs and on the flatland are fun to watch. However, it is this bloke called Ernest Mansfield, and his New-London, that fascinate me; the ”marble” quarry he operated there (actually, when the wooden boxes containing the ”marble” were opened in England they were found to contain only sand and gravel, and some water; upon being taken from the permafrost of Svalbard the marble crumbled together. In this adventure Mansfield managed to let many people invest huge sums of money!) and his apparent megalomania as someone who at one time claimed more than 10.000 km2 of Svalbard land as his. I still don’t know if he was simply naive, or a wicked crook, or extremely optimistic, but I like to think of him as the Felix Krull of Svalbard: An incredibly charming "Hochstapler". Or maybe even similar to Hannes Hafstein, one of Iceland’s most famous poets and politicians, who once sold the Northern Lights to an American millionaire. If I ever sit down to write a biography, it will be Mansfield’s.

Then there’s Mr. India. Mind you, we’re not used to people from that far side of the world joining us on our cruises here in the high north, so having someone from India on board was fun! He is a herbalist and also reads palms, so as you can imagine we guides besieged him in the bar one evening and had him read our fortune. That was interesting! Sigurd, who is a petroleum geologist (and doesn’t shave or cut his hair unless he really really has to, thus looking quite like a cave man), was told that he should refrain from anything involving too much thinking and concentrate on hard labour instead (prejudice, anyone?!?!). The rest of us he got pretty well, the most common reaction to a new palm being: ”Oh, this is a very good hand!”, with wonderful Indian accent. Then we all got an offer to have our Indian horoscopes made, and complete palm reading as well, straight from India: Put our hands on the photocopy machine, cover with a towel and press the green button, send the copy to him and receive in turn a 30-page book with everything about us! I’ve got his e-mail, if you’re interested ;)

Now it’s a few hours of meetings and relaxing in town before we set off again. I’m the Expedition Leader’s assistant now, that’s a good change from being a guide. Better paid, too J Means that I stay on the boat the whole time and don’t go off to follow up the group as the guides do. It also means that I have access to a computer on board the boat and can write these ramblings of mine there, not having to use too much of my precious time in town in front of the Blogger ”edit your blog” page. Now that’s a real benefit from changing jobs!