GODT NYTTÅR (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

Picture of the week: Northern lights over Adventfjorden.

Godt nyttår to everyone from 78º north!  New Year’s Eve was a special night… a calm clear night with the moon starting to peak out and anticipation in the air.  About 6 in the evening, things started erupting around town to a crescendo at midnight.  Fireworks are legal here and sold in stores for that specific time, so people had stockpiled over the past few weeks.  We went out and set ours off between 8 and 9 and the kids (I guess that includes me) had a blast… sorry… had to say it!  Jason and Anders both had a health respect for the dangers and did a great job managing the operation.  The highlight of the night though was the neighbor across the street.  He put on a 20 minute show right outside out place at midnight and must have spent 30-40,000 kroner ($5,000+).  The attached pictures and movies below do the experience more justice. 

Jason launches a rocket.

Happy New Year!

Infront of a fountain with the boys.

Launching one of our larger rockets.

12 - Midnight!

Longyearbyen on New Years.

I love fireworks!!

New Year’s Day (Monday) and Tuesday were hard on most people coming out of their Romjul (see last week) winter slumber and getting back into the work mode again.  Wednesday night we went out for dinner at Svalbar to celebrate the end of a real holiday.  The boys had a hard time getting back into the school routine.  I heard the same thing from the students I have in basketball on Thursday night, so it is a common occurrence this time of year.  Nicole has been enjoying her days sans boys and working on her website (nourishthejourney.com).  Generally time is flying by!

Still felt like Christmas this week as we had a great snowfall.

Moon over Adventfjorden.

Added to this “hardship” of getting out of the slumber, I had a full week getting a set of new instrumentation together and packing for the cruise next week.  The ship we are going on, the Hilmar Hansen (named for Amundsen’s ice pilot), was in dry dock in Stavanger over the holidays and ran into some delays.  Because ship time is costly, the participants from Longyearbyen (5) are going to fly to Tromsø to catch the ship up to Svalbard for the cruise.  I don’t agree with the strategy, but it will save about 12 hours on the cruise. So we had to scramble and get the cargo on the Friday flight to pass customs for release on Sunday.  I also worked on the new REMUS to get that up and going.  We tried to deploy it yesterday, but the vehicle did not like being so far north and rejected the compass calibration.  We got the vehicle out today, on an amazing clear day with northern lights, and the initial tests went well.  I decided to let it go and conduct one of the routine missions we had done with the other vehicle and watched the flashing light on top of the vehicle disappear under the surface as it sped offshore.  Returning to UNIS I found that it had called in and everything was working fine.  I then went to the store to buy some light bulbs (only half have worked since we arrived!) and returned to UNIS to find out it had called once again, but this time had a leak fault.  Jørgen and I were out in the boat again in about 15 minutes and rushed offshore to find it.  We knew the general location, put the acoustic ranger in the water and were within a kilometer of it.  We homed in on the position and were able to get it out without incident.  We were fortunate for only a light breeze and a crystal clear day with the near full moon lighting area.  The northern lights were a welcomed distraction from the impending problems with the vehicle.  One of the sensors leaked into the vehicle, similar to a problem we had a year ago with this vehicle, so my sampling with the REMUS are over for the season.  While unfortunate, we have plenty of great information to go through over the next year and doesn’t affect our ability to address the questions we are interested in (see the October blog entry on “Winter Mooring is in”).

Working on the new equipment for the cruise...office a mess.

Tracking the REMUS today.  The smile is before the leak!

Moonlight over Hiorthfjellet from our porch.

So, I leave for Tromsø tomorrow to catch the ship and will be on board until the 17^th or 18^th of January.  I will do everything post a blog during the winter cruise to the northern part of Svalbard and the Arctic shelf break at about 82º, but might be short on pictures as the satellite connection is poor north of 80º.  It will be exciting (maybe not the Barents Sea crossing) as we are likely to see some polar bears, more northern lights and the pack ice, and hope to share that with all of you.  Stay connected!