Warm sun, cold place

When I told people about my plans to go to Svalbard for 12 hours to see a total eclipse of the Sun, I got every response from "Cool!" to "WHAT?!". And I guess all of them are understandable. I had never been to Svalbard, so I had no idea what to expect, other than the obvious pictures I had seen beforehand.
I and a friend decided to go together on a cheap trip. All other organized trips cost in the 5-10 000 dollar range. After some reasearch, we found we could camp just north of the airport. A bit cold, but about $50 per person. And we also found airline tickets for around $400. A 4WD was rented for a day for around $300. So a total of about $750. MUCH more affordable.
All week before we left, the weather forecast said partly cloudy. I was sceptical, but decided that it didn't matter. Svalbard itself would be an adventure. And I love an adventure.
Gitte, my friend, left earlier on Thursday the 19th. She wanted to drive around and check out the area. And she volunteered to set up the tent. My flight was first postponed one hour and then delayed. The result was that I arrived just before 2am. Gitte picked me up. She was already smiling from the time she had spent. Loving it.
We were supposed to have polar bear watch from 3 to 4 am. So we decided to skip sleeping. Just sat in the dining hall and chatted. I spent the time setting up my gear. Bear watch was a new concept for me. And I guess this is the only camp site in the world with polar bear watch. I may be wrong. A lady brought some signal pen for me to use if I saw any bears. To be honest, I hoped I would see one. But for most of the time, I juset wandered around, enjoying the beautiful and slow sunrise. The wind blew. Chilling my face. But I was loving it. It felt right. Less that 12 degrees from the North Pole, I was supposed to freeze. But I obviously had dressed correctly. Only the parts of my face that were exposed, were cold. The rest of the body was comfortable. Even in the -18 degree. Probably -30 with the wind chill factor. After my turn was done, I sat up my camera to take a photo of my self in my gear.

After a few exposures, the camera froze. Literally. It didn't react to anything. Not even when I flipped the on-off to "off" position. I had to bring it inside and pull out the battery to reset it.
I unpacked my sleeping bag. I had bought a down version that had comfort temperature to -20C. And that was indeed true. It was warm and comfy. Only problem was the wind was so strong that it tugged the tent the whole night. I didn't sleep much. Expected to be dragged along with the tent at any time. I got perhaps 10 minutes of sleep. But who cares? I was on Svalbard! After a refreshing 10 minutes of sleep, Gitte woke me up and I got dressed and packed my stuff. She took down the tent and we packed all our gear into the car.

Then we had a short breakfast consisting of chocolate, protein bars and "knekkebrød" with brown cheese. Breakfast for champions! We were ready for todays adventure.

The camera fogged over in the warm air inside

We had talked during the night about taking a drive around the limited road network to see as much as possible before the solar eclipse. We had planned to just stay at the camp site for the eclipse. So after breakfast, we headed out in our car.
I just had to take a lot of photos. The landscape was just stunning. And thus, impossible to depict for an amateur photographer like myself.
Here are some examples :

We drove up to Eiscat on a mountain in the Advent valley. Beautiful view. 

When we stood there, we realized there were some clouds rolling in from the west. After some discussion, we decided that our best option was probably to stay east of Longyearbyen. While we stood there, Gitte saw something moving. "Polar bear!" she said.

I looked in the direction she was pointing. I took a photo with my camera, and something indeed moved there. But it was impossible to see what. 

So I took out my telescope and took another photo.

Reindeer... I must admit, I was a bit disappointed. But what can I do?

I shot a first image of the sun before we drove back into Longyearbyen for refueling the car and buying some supplies. 

And taking a selfie.

Longyearbyen.

And the official Svalbard department of the Santa Claus post office ("Julenissen" = Santa Claus).

We drove back and forth to find a spot where we could be by ourself. Not too many people around. And I took some pictures while we were driving.

A crowd waiting for the eclipse

Icy road

Skidoos on the way to an observing site.

We found a spot in far from any other groups and set up our gear.

Gitte setting up her camera for video.

Observers on the other side of the fjord

Panorama view of our site. The middle of the panorama is due west

Eclipse!

Nothing more to say here than : AWESOME eclipse! As always, it is just undescribable! A must-see for anyone!

Technical details for the interested : Pentax K5, ISO 400. Exposures from 1/4000th of a second to 1/2 second. Totality image made up of 7 exposures of different lengths. 

After the eclipse, we headed straight for the airport. We checked in, and had a ice-cream by the sign outside the arrival building. 

Then I took some final images before we headed through security to get on our plane back to Oslo.

I took some pictures from the plane. One last farewell with the beauty of Svalbard. I will be back someday!

 

Longyearbyen from the airplane.

Ragnar

Eclipse chaser and travel nut