Sunday, July 3rd 2005
After a short flight from Helsinki and a friendly, but thorough customs and immigration procedure in Murmansk, we finally get to go on board the amazing Kapitan Dranitsyn—the moment we have been waiting for—to get acquainted with the new and unusual surroundings of this spectacular vessel and its powerful, unique engineering wonders. The passengers boarding are from Germany, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, and USA. All are immediately impressed by the overwhelming grandness of the great icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn, which will be our home for the next 2 weeks. The ship is 131 meters long and 26.5 meters wide. From the water line it is approximately 40 meters high. It will carry us with the capacity of 24,000 horse power to Franz-Josef-Land. There are 11 decks, one pool, one sauna, and of course a lecture hall. The bridge will be open during the entire journey for all passengers to enjoy and gaze as far as the eye can see. The friendly crew of 60 Russians will expertly care for the 73 guests during the mysterious and exciting trip to the Arctic North.
Shortly after 6 p.m. we leave the brilliant and sunny summer day of Murmansk behind and head out into the Barents Sea.
Monday, July 4th 2005
At 7:15 a. m. we hear the lovely voice of our expedition leader Victor Boyarsky on the PA system, telling us that it is time to get up. Ater breakfast we meet in the lecture hall for the first time to get introduced to the expedition staff and the crew of the ship. We also get a safety briefing how to use the helicopters and Zodiacs, followed by a lifeboat drill.
After lunch we get divided into groups and go on a guided tour of the ship from the radio room to the sauna and swimming pool. At 5:30 p. m. our expedition leader Victor gives a lecture about his greatest adventure “The International Transantarctica Expedition”.
At night our captain invites us for the welcome-captain’s dinner.
Tuesday, July 5th 2005
Today is a day of preparation and lectures about our destination. After another calm night in the Barents Sea our expedition leader Victor wakes us up at 7:15 a.m. The first lecture is given by Arne Kertelhein about the Austrian Expedition that discovered Franz-Josef-Land. “Irrfahrt im Eis-die Entdeckung Franz-Joseph Lands” is the German title, followed by the English version a bit later. Another lecture about sea ice is presented in German and English by Dieter Joern. Aptly, shortly after lunch we encounter, the first floes and pieces of sea ice and the lucky winner, who guessed the right time of the encounter will receive a bottle of champagne for dinner.
Another bet is about the time we see the first polar bear. We don’t have to wait long! Half an hour later the bridge spots a cream-coloured animal on a small ice floe and we have our first polar bear! Gently the captain steers the huge “Kapitan Dranitsyn” towards the ice floe, where the polar bear is resting. The big animal doesn’t seem to be worried and watches us quietly, while we inch closer and closer. Everybody gets a good look and the cameras click frantically! Certainly Kodak shares will go up tonight! The bear is not impressed by us and starts to yawn frequently. Eventually he gets boared of us and jumps into the water, only to climb back onto the floe after we left!
What a start to our expedition! We saw our first wild polar bear! Expectations rise and and the hopes are high to see more wildlife in the days to come. Our enthusiasm is further fuelled by a lecture by Sepp Friedhuber, who shows us incredibly beautiful pictures from 2 expeditions last year! We cannot wait to be there!
Wednesday, July 6th 2005
During the night we have finally reached our destination Franz-Josef-Land! Wednesday morning finds us in front of Cape Flora, Northbrook Island, where we plan to land with Zodiacs. Unfortunately we cannot see anything because it is very foggy. Since 6 a.m. our Zodiac drivers have warmed up the brand-new engines and practised with our “Korsar” boats around the ship. Now it is our turn to practise. We climb into the boats and go for a scenic cruise around the “Kapitan Dranitsyn”. On the windward side of the ship the sea is a little rough and some of us take the second shower of the day, this time with seawater! It is a very good exercise for the landings to come. Unfortunately, the visibility does not really improve and on Bell Island, our second planned destination of the day, the conditions are the same, as our Victor finds out on a scouting trip with the helicopter. So we move on to find better weather and after lunch the sun tries to break through. In between, our lecturers tell us more about the geology of the Arctic and the birds we can see up here in these latitudes.
In the meantime our ship has moved into sea ice and we can feel the power of 24,000 horses! During a break in the fog we climb into the helicopters to train for future landing operations and to have a look at our ship in the sea ice from the air. There is just enough time for all of us for a short flight and then the fog moves in again.
After dinner we approach another highlight of the cruise: Rubini Rock, on Hooker Island is the most famous bird cliff of Franz-Josef-Land, with thousands of kittiwakes, Brünnich’s guillemots, black guillemots, little auks and glaucous gulls, all breeding on the spectacular basalt columns of this gigantic volcanic plug. The noise of the birds, busily coming and going to their nests is overwhelming. Thousands more sit on the calm water between the ice floes. The smell is not as bad as expected, but we still have to be careful not to get a free sample of the famous “guano”!
On the other side of the bay we get occasional glimpses of Tichaja Station, an abandoned Soviet research base. Unfortunately ice conditions and fog prevent our landing there.
Anyway, we are tired from a long day with many activities and look forward to tomorrow.
Thursday, July 7th, 2005
In the morning the weather is fantastic, sunshine and 4 degrees centigrade! We plan to land on Wilczek Island to visit the lonely grave of Otto Krisch, the only member of the Austrian Franz-Josef-Land expedition, who died on the trip. For some of us this is a special day. The descendants of Otto Krisch and Count Wilczek, after whom the island was named, had decided independently to visit this place and only met on the ship. What a coincidence! They are the first ones to fly over to the island and everybody is happy to give them a few minutes alone at the lonely resting place of their ancestor. Then everybody else climbs into the helicopters and for the first time we set our foot om Franz-Josef-Land. It is an awesome place, barren and still full of life! Between the rock rings and the frost-shattered stones we find colourful Arctic poppy, purple saxifrage and white checkweeds. The rocks are covered in colourful lichen and green and red moss in the wetter parts. In the cliffs under the grave kittiwakes, glaucous gulls and black guillemots are breeding and a real polar bear scavenges on the beach below, before the smell of too many humans is too much for him and he leaves. We walk for a little while along the cliffs and then back to the helicopters, always under the watchful eyes of our 3 hunters.
After lunch we take to the helicopters again to land at famous Cape Tegetthoff on Hall Island, named after the ship of the Austrian expedition which discovered the archipelago in 1873.
The cape is marked by two seastacks. They are the end of a long basaltic dyke, which forms a continuous hard ridge leading up to the basaltic plateau. Underneath, very soft Jurassic rocks are exposed, which are weathered rapidly, once the hard basaltic cover is removed. There are also the remains of a wooden hut, erected by the American Wellmann expedition. Again, we go for a little walk, up to the ridge and down on the other side. On the way we discover an amazing variety of plants, in particular near the beach and around little meltwater ponds.
In addition to the plants we saw this morning, moisture-loving species appear, like the yellow snow buttercup.
Unfortunately the sky is overcast now, but it is not hard to image how these colourful flower patches would look in brilliant sunshine! Again, time passes much too fast and we head back for the helicopters. Dinner time!
Friday, July 8th, 2005
Again it is a glorious morning, when we wake up just offshore Champ Island, in the middle of the archipelago. We take our helikopters over to the shore and slowly walk up a scree slope to find a unique geological curiosity, completely round stone balls, which come in all sizes from centimeters to 2 m in diameter. They consist of marcasite, an iron-sulfur mineral which precipitated around an organic nucleus (fish remains) about 100 Mio years ago in the muddy seafloor. After solidifying, the surrounding softer rock was removed by uplift and erosion and millions of years later the rock balls appeared on the surface. Today, they weather out of the slope all over the place. We use the fantastic weather to climb up on a little ridge and enjoy the view. Plant life is also abundant and an Arctic skua is nesting just across a meltwater stream.
It is hard to go back to the helikopters and leave this fantastic place, but as soon as we are all safe on the ship the fog moves in again. That’s the weather in the Arctic! So we move on to our next destination, Cape Heller on Wilczek Land. The Cape is also shrouded in dense fog, but after dinner the fog lifts a little and we are able to launch our helikopters for a short visit on this historic spot. Arne, our historian has told us the story twice already, how 2 Norwegians, Bentsen and Bjørvik, wintered here in 1899 as an advance post of the Wellmann expedition.
Their equipment was inadequate and they lived only from bear and walrus meat, in their crude shelter they built from rocks and walrus hide. Bentsen eventually died, but Bjørvik kept the corpse in his sleeping bag, to shelter him from the bears, until he was eventually rescued.
The hear the story is one thing, but to see the place in a mystical light with your own eyes is another. These days, with all the conveniences of modern civilization, we have absolutely no idea what it meant to spend months and months in a freezing hole in the ground in total darkness, with one cup of coffee a day as your only comfort!
Saturday, July 9th, 2005
During the night we have moved further north and in the morning we anchor offshore Appolonov and Stolichki Islands. This is the home of the famous walrus, and already from the ship we have seen ice floes crowded with walrus. The morning fog lifts a little further and we jump into the Zodiacs to go “walrus-cruising”. The sea is absolutely calm and we can carefully approach the ice floes where these amazing animals rest. They are mostly females with young, but some of them still have big tusks!
They like the shallow waters around these islands, because here it is easy to feed on the bottom and forage for their favourite food, clams! There are also birds around, eider ducks, little auks and Brünnich’s guillemots.
After 2 hours in the Zodiac it gets a little cold, even during these calm weather conditions and we head back to the ship for lunch. We continue our journey through soft sea ice towards Cape Norvegia on Jackson Island. On the way, a polar bear mother and 2 cubs pass the course of our ship. Unfortunately they seem to have an urgent appointment somewhere else and don’t take the time to stop for a chat and a photo!
So we continue towards Cape Norvegia and fly the short distance from the ship to the famous location where Nansen and Johansen wintered in a primitive shelter from rocks and walrus hide, after they had left the “Fram” adrift in the Arctic pack ice do make a daring dash for the North Pole. History tells that they did not succeed, but they managed to stay alive and later accidentally met Jackson, who brought them back to civilization.
A marker on Cape Norvegia commemorates the events and we can see the sparse remains of Nansens and Johansens hut.
Amongst the flora we find a rarer species, tiny little yellow flowers with spider-like thin threads, the spider plant.
The fog is coming and going as we climb up a scree slope to reach the top of the cliff and get an eagle’s view of Cape Norvegia. The view from the lookout is stunning and we can now imagine how the world must have looked like during the last ice age. Strange eneough, the trip downhill is much faster, especially for those who take the helikopter taxi, and we hurry back to the ship, not to miss the main event of the day: barbecue party on the deck!
Sunday, July 10th , 2005
Today we approach the northernmost point of our journey, Rudolph Island. The whole night our ship has ploughed through heavy sea ice to reach Teplitz Bay on the northernmost island of Franz-Josef-Land. Here, a big polar station was operated by the Russians until 1995, when they ran out of money. Again, it is a beautiful morning when our helicopters take us over to the remains of the station, which look like they were abandoned just yesterday.
The buildings are still standing, filled with drifting snow and empty fuel drums, cables and old machinery and derelict tractors litter the ground. In one building even the cooking pots are still on the stove!
From the abandoned station we walk for half an hour to reach Cape Saeulen, a beautiful spot with basalt cliffs above the sea ice and a plaque commemorating the Russian Captain Sedov, who died on the sea ice in 1914, in an ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole. From here, there is an unobstructed view towards the North Pole, with no land in between! We have reached the northernmost point of our journey, 81°48.5’ N!
The afternoon is quickly spent with watching our icebreaker retrace its course back through the sea ice and visiting the lecture of Franz about “Glaciers – heritage of the last ice-age”.
Late at night the nuclear icebreaker “Yamal” catches up with us on his way back from the North Pole to help us through the heavy sea ice.
Monday, July 11th, 2005
With the help of the “Yamal” we reach our destination Cape Flora in the morning, only to find out that it is shrouded in heavy fog again. So we move to Alger Island and launch the Zodiacs for a morning ride. There is no fog here and the sea is calm. We cruise along spectacular ice cliffs, and groups of walrusses appear now and then to have a look at the strange animals on a red rubber ice floe. This is a beautiful bay, with glaciers, basalt cliffs and snow fields, plenty of seabirds and walrus in the mirror-like sea. Even a polar bear shows up to bid us farewell from Franz-Josef-Land. Time passes so quickly, we hardly notice that we are cold, but finally we are glad to be back on the ship in time for lunch. The afternoon is spent with lectures by Arne about Jackson, one of the most important explorers in this area.
Another highlight of the day is the Russian Dinner, with typical dishes from “Mother Russia” followed by traditional songs of our singer Olga, the most beautiful voice of the Russian icebreaker fleet.
Tuesday, July 12th, 2005
Today we start our journey back to Murmansk, which means we’ll be cruising in the Barents Sea for the entire day. Nevertheless, it won’t be boring as we can attend the lectures of Sepp, who talks about arctic animals and plants, and how they survive in the harsh climate of the high latitudes. Later Dieter is reading from the diaries of famous arctic explorers and in the afternoon we can watch a video presentation on the other trips and activities of Poseidon Arctic Voyages. That creates new dreams and wishes! We have caught the polar virus and we’ll certainly be back in the high Arctic!
To prepare us for our return to warmer latitudes, our aboriginal Australian Franz gives an evening presentation on the red continent “Down Under”.
Wednesday, July 13th, 2005
missing !!!
Thursday, July 14th, 2005
This logbook was written and carefully provided with typing errors by Franz Gingele. Pictures and layout by Sepp Friedhuber, Arne Kertelhein and Dieter Joern.