Boat trip

Steinar fishing

Last week-end Anna and i where so lucky to have good friends like Hilde & Steinar who invited us on a boat trip in their big 36 feet motor-boat. We got picked up on Saturday afternoon and then we went down to the harbour. The weather was pretty good but quite some wind, so the journey across the fjord to Skansebukta in Billefjorden was a bit rough, but all ended well. A cruise-ship arrived just before us, so the beach was crawling with German tourists for a few hours;0). We also went ashore, grilled some sausages and drank some champagne while enjoying the good life in the Arctic. Two of the guides were also some good friends of us.

Anna in Skansebukta

During the evening we set the fishing net to see if we would get some nice "röye", which is some sort of salmon. Steinar had already gotten some the day before so we had a wonderful dinner with grilled "röye" mm

Next morning the good weather had reached an end, but the boat is large and comfortable, so a bit of rain didn´t bother us. After a late breakfast we followed the fjord into the bottom of Billefjorden and the abandonned settlement of Pyramiden. This used to be a Russian settlement, but it was closed down in 1998 after a huge air-plane crash in 1996 killing 141 people an other factor was the difficult conditions mining the carboniferous coal. Due to the rain and wind we didn´t go ashore in the town, but sailed slowly back to Longyearbyen, watching the landscape and the many birds flying by.

Thank you for a fantastic week-end