Revenge Of The Sea Ice

Our anchorage at Pyramiden seemed ideal, good holding, a spectacular view of Nordenskiold glacier and a visiting piece of sea ice that was large enough for Frances to stroll on with a brightly colored beach umbrella. Though the sheet of ice was four times the size of Snow Dragon, they seemed to coexist without incident. Suddenly the wind picked up, filling the bay with ice, and the friendly ice sheet began pushing against Snow Dragon.

We are not sure if the ice was more offended by being walked on or the bright colored umbrella but needless to say we got the message: the ice wanted us gone. The only thing preventing us from a speedy departure was that the objecting piece of ice was sitting on top of our anchor. This normally would not have been a problem but in this instance the ice was pushing us towards shore.

In effort to let the ice move past without having to cut our anchor loose, Frances dumped all 120 meters of anchor chain into the water while Krystina maneuvered Snow Dragon around the large sheet of ice. The anchor was pulling us towards deeper water but the combination of ice and wind pushing against Snow Dragon’s bow made it questionable how much longer the anchor would continue to hold. The ice had already managed to push us into shallow water where Snow Dragon found herself firmly aground.

While pulling the anchor up from under the ice, our powered windlass stopped functioning and we resorted to pulling 60 meters of chain manually. Two and half hours into our ice dispute, we finally got the anchor up and managed to motor Snow Dragon off the mud. By this time the wind had dropped and the ice had left the bay.

Snow Dragon escaped from her unscheduled shore visit without any damage and headed back to Longyearbyen to spend a couple days free of ice. On our way, we discovered that the anchor windlass had only flipped its circuit breaker when it sensed that it was being overworked. With a flip of the switch the windlass was back in action.

Once we got settled, Frances suited up in multiple layers of dive gear and went down to double check that there was no hidden damage. Everything looked good and Frances took a few moments to do a bit of recreational diving before getting out of the freezing water.

     (photo courtesy of Twinga)

Ice, Ice And More Ice

Elvar decided to spend a few extra days on board before returning to Tromso. After contemplating a few possibilities, we decided to try and get into the Russian ghost town of Pyramiden. The closest we were able to get was four miles outside the town, as the approach was still frozen solid with sea ice. After inventing an anchorage, Frances and Elvar decided to hike into the town.

It turned out to be quite a trek, taking them over three hours, but well worth the effort. On arrival the town was completely quiet. Then suddenly a ghostly yellow machine appeared and disappeared between two buildings. Were there people? The answer soon came as two men riding on a front-end loader approached. They were surprised that Frances and Elvar had walked in from the edge of the ice and gladly gave them permission to explore the town.

Meanwhile Krystina stayed on board battling sheets of drift ice that were so dense at times she began to doubt if she would be able to retrieve Frances and Elvar from shore. The ice eventually let up enough to lower the dinghy into the water and collect the two tired hikers. Not wanting to spend the night with large sheets of ice banging against Snow Dragon we decided to retreat to the secure anchorage of Skansbukta. Which did prove to be calm and peaceful until the bay filled with drift ice, making it necessary to push more ice in order to get back to Longyearbyen.

After Elvar left, we made another attempt at getting into Pyramiden.The ice was more broken than the previous week and we decided to try and push through. Once Snow Dragon entered the pack ice, our friends Willem and Ingrid, on Twinga radioed to tell us that watching Snow Dragon in action was more entertaining than TV. After making a few exploratory pokes at the ice, we decided to turn around and join Twinga in her anchorage.

We were fairly sure the ice would move out with the tide and decided to wait until morning before committing to pushing miles of ice. Sure enough the ice cleared and we were able to get into the bay and explore the town. The only obstacle this time was the pier, which was a good climb from our dinghy with virtually no footholds.