Late solar eclipse special!

Hi guys, Vanessa here!

Even though the solar eclipse was 10 days ago, a small Arctic update is needed.

Last week was rather stressful for us biology people with two presentations and lectures every day (hence the late update).

Currently the weather is horrendous (wind+snow=white-out) and the Easter holidays have started, so I thought an update would be appropriate. Let’s get started…

As you all know the very exciting solar eclipse took place 10 days ago. 

Prior to that spectacular event, Colin flew up to Svalbard to help the biology course with some fieldwork. A small part of the biology course deployed and retrieved a mooring with an AZFP (Acoustic Zooplankton Fish Profiler) attached to it to measure zooplankton activity (DVM) among other things. We also went out on two boat trips to collect zooplankton samples during midday and midnight. 

Connor and I were part of the night group (I snuck my way in just in case there were any bioluminescent organisms, there were none).

Whilst wearing sexy orange rescue suits, we hauled out a zooplankton net several times and towed it for about 5 to 10 mins, and we also made a CTD cast. After collecting all the samples we wanted we made our way back to the harbour and arrived there at about midnight, where we were greeted by Northern lights (what a hard life we have). 

Once back at UNIS, we showered each other down and started preparing the samples for lab work.

Showering after a night at sea

Let’s just say there was a lot of krill. A lot. But there were also some sea angels, copepods, ctenophores, arrow worms and some amphipods. We separated the ctenophores from the rest and measured them. Then the samples were sieved and all the samples were transferred into bottles to be stored for later use. We got back home at around 01.30 (tired and very hungry). Have to say though that Longyearbyen actually looked like a big city when we were out.

Anyone fancy some krill?

Can you spot the arrow worms?

Waiting for the cars and the eclipse

Unfortunately, we were not able to go out during the actual eclipse as Mother Nature had decided to bring us calm and freezing weather, which led to the formation of 11cm thick sea ice. However, the 20^th of March was a beautiful day and thus our lovely module leader Janne took us to her cabin/house out in Adventdalen. There we sat on reindeer skins with hot drinks and biscuits eagerly awaiting the eclipse. The valley was overrun by tourists that had out all sort of high-tech equipment, but luckily we were further up and it was quiet where we were. Excitement among our class was building up rapidly and many of us did not have high expectations, but oh boy. It got darker and darker, the temperature dropped and just wow. We were all blown away. The total eclipse just looked  

A-mazing!!! There were so many ‘wows’ and ‘ohhs’ and ‘ahhhs’ and some sweary words. 

Truly amazing to see! 

But would I pay £10,000 to 20,000 to see it? No, I think I would just watch on TV :).

A part of Adventdalen that was filled with tourists

Scotland! Solar Eclipse!

Waiting for the eclipse

Solar Eclipse

And for the dog lovers among our audience, we got to see Janne's dogs after the eclipse.She even had two super adorable puppies.

The super adorable puppies

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Colesbukta Round 2 - The boys trip

Yummy turmat for lunch

Hello there, Sam here writing from a wind battered Longyearbyen after a big storm came through last night. Recently I've been really busy - not so much with school work but with other equally exciting things.


After a big low pressure system eventually moved away on the 4th of March Felix, a friend and I decided to go for a 4 day ski trip to Colesbukta. As you may remember from one of Lucy's blog entries last semester, Colesbukta is an abandoned mining town between Longyearbyen and Barentsburg. After spending the 4th preparing for the trip, Felix and I set out at 8.45am with a 25km ski tour ahead of us. Felix looked the part with his new gear and skis leaving me feeling a bit outdated. We kept a good pace and made lunch around 1pm. After another km or two Matt (our snowmobile support) arrived having taken the firewood to our destination. After some discussion we all agreed that whilst the last 13km would be just as enjoyable as the previous, it would be best that we would be toed the rest of the way. In no time Felix and I were being pulled along at 40km/h behind the scooter and arriving in Colesbukta in no time. Once we arrived at the cabin we quickly settled in, got the fire going, ate 3 servings worth of mash potato and tinned meat and climbed into bed.

Inside Grumant

After a long sleep we had breakfast and set out to hike along the coast to Grumant (another Russian mining town). It was pretty windy but we made good progress until stopping at the 'end of the line' of the old railway. Along the way we saw hundreds of reindeer and several Arctic Foxes. As the coast was to icy to clamber along we bailed out up a really steep valley. Our resident Tirolian Ski guide Mathias kicked steps up the steep slope whilst I followed tentatively, examining the fresh avalanche scars on the adjacent wall 200m below. Once at the top we crossed over to Grumantdalen where we decided to turn around at about 2pm. The walk back was great made epic by a sweet sunset. In the evening we had some visitors who brought enough beer and wine for all of us resulting in a late night.

Looking South-West towards Barentsburg

After a fairly late start the next day we starting skiing towards Grumant again over the plateau. We quickly passed our turning point and ski'd down the valley to Grumant. I had a few big crashes on the way down and put some fresh cuts into my skis. Whilst Grumant was incredible we didn't stay for long, leaving at 3pm after a  quick explore. The journey back was tough and we arrived back in the dark. Luckily the fire was going strong and the cabin was nice and cosy thanks to the others meaning after some food we were all off to bed pretty early.

Grumant

Cosy cabin

On the last day Felix and I woke up early and began packing and preparing for our long trip home. We left the cabin at 9.30am and set off towards Longyearbyen. It was really tough conditions and challenging terrain but by 3.30pm we were on the familiar plateau and nearing Nybyen. The ski down Tverrdalen was sweet and spat us out just above the barrack. We were both relieved to be home as our feet were worn out and I'd eaten all of my chocy bicies. After the photo below we both hobbled back to our barracks like a pair of OAP's with the disco shakes.

Battered and broken but back in Nybyen!

One last thing - I've made a short video of highlights from the trip, here is a link to the password protected video:

https://vimeo.com/122297815

Password : spitzbergen