back in Svalbard;0)

Malte and his scooter

Since I came here to Longyearbyen, Svalbard I have been quite busy. I already moved to a second appartment, luckily in the same house and will probably have to move to a more permanent apartment when Anna comes here in august/September...

Malte and Alexander putting up one of the basestations for the DGPS

My colleagues in the firm are all very nice to me and show a genuine interest in new people, so the feel welcome in the firm;0)

I got a good office and a huge computer so I can do some work. for the first 3 days I went with my colleagues Malte to the University where he was teaching a about coal geology to a small class and I had the possibility of freshening up and learning some more! We even went into one of the coal mines -  avery dark and cramped place!

Me in the scooter outfit

Malte and I had a good day on snow scooters to Svea (60 km), where our main production is. We were measuring the precise position of some boreholes with the help of DGPS stations. The weather was fantastic and i love my job;0)
We have also gone with the helicopter to the drill site, which is situated at a mountain at 925 m elevation to log the drill cores and move the drill site. Due to fog and white out we almost got stuck on the mountain, but the pilots where good so we managed to get home...

The view from Lunckefjellet drill-site down on Marthabreen

During the time I spend in my office I read a lot of articles to bring my geological knowledge up to date in coal geology.

The drill-site

Retrieving the cores

I have met a lot of people in town from all my years in Svalbard. Is is good to have friends when starting to work in a new place;0) Time passes by so quickly, I have already been here for 2 weeks, and next week I will have a lot of responsibility - to control the core drilling sites...

Our ride, the B3 helicopter

Adjusted blog

Today I have added a link to a 360 degree web camera from Longyearbyen, Svalbard.
Also the link to my pictures will be removed in the end of this month as the company running it are closing down, so either I have to find a new way of storing pictures or I will have to add more pictures on the blog :0(

left Iceland for a long time...

Today I left Iceland for a very long time, to attend to my new job as a geologist in the coal mine on Svalbard. Svalbard is a group of island almost 2000  km north of Iceland, covered by 60% of glaciers.

Leaving Iceland i felt like Gunnar of Hlidarendi felt 1000 years ago, (Njåls Saga)
"Fair are the hillsides, so fair as I have never seen them before,
the pale meadows and just-mown hayfields.
I am going home and I will never leave again."

The only difference is that I left Iceland to a new future instead of the death which Gunnar faced. I will often come back to Iceland to enjoy this beautiful and exciting country, my family and friends and my apartment;0)

I will be staying in Norway at my parents place until Saturday when I will fly north to Svalbard...

good bye dinner

Saturday night I invited my mothers sister and brothers and Annas parents to dinner, as a way of saying good-bye to everyone for the time I have been in Iceland.
I spent most of the day grocery-shopping, preparing the starter, which was scallops wrapped in parma ham with pan fried pumpkin seeds in lemon juice.
As a main course i made fillet of lamb in the oven with a sauce of mint gel in white-wine, served with oven baked potato wedges, melted mozzarella cheese, sweet-potatoes and a mixture of feta-cheese and sun-dried tomatoes.
For desert i made a large cake chocolate-coconut cake filled with cream, strawberries and blueberries.

while all the cooking was being done, Anna was working on her master thesis, which she has to hand in on Thursday...

Altogether we where 14 people and then there was the dish-washing afterwords...
But we had a great night and good fun

The car got some problems when we went to the swimming-pool. We opened the window, but it did not close again:0(. Something has broken inside the frame, so I had to tape some plastic to the window to keep bad weather outside and then we can take the car to the mechanic tomorrow. Today they did not have available time!
 

Polar bear again again...

This morning a polar bear was sighted by some fishermen in the north east of Iceland, close to the Hornstrandir area. The coast guard helicopter was called to the area and brought the police, people from the ministry of environment and others. After searching for the animal it was found in difficult terrain and foggy area. It was then decided to shot the bear, as the risk of loosing it was to great - this could then leed to the bear travelling to habited areas...

While all of this was going on I decided to go and have a final look at my glacier, before I leave. The weather was great, between +13 to +18 degrees, so I could walk around in t-shirt and enjoy a little bit of field-work. The glacier is still getting smaller, but it will exist for many years to come...

Apartment and snow

Today we got the good news that Anna and I have bought an apartment in Seltjarnarnes, Reykjavik, Iceland. During the last 10 days or so we have been making offers back and forth with the owners, but today the owners settled with a price we thought was good for us.

The apartment is in a house with only three apartments, it is the top most one, 107m2, and has a garage of almost 30m2 and the some additional storage-rooms in the basement. The view and the location is excellent and is just perfect.                    To bad we have to live in a small coal-mine apartment in Svalbard;0). It will be good to be in Svalbard and pay down the small loan while being abroad!



This afternoon summer did not show up, but king winter did - temperature dropped to -1 and heavy wet snow has been falling since then. Maybe there is a chance for some skiing tomorrow;0)

I have already started packing my things which has to go to Svalbard. Some things like books and summer clothes will be left behind in Iceland, as well as the cars (which will probably be sold). Arriving in Svalbard I will get a 42 square meter apartment fully equiped. Anna is handing in her master thesis in tourism on Tuesday and then she will have to finish working in the company. Therefore she will not be able to join me in Svalbard until the end of July or early August. Then she will have some time to get used to the fact that she is moving far up north and I can also focus 100% on my new and exciting job in the business of mining geology;0).

When Anna joins me in Svalbard, we will get a larger apartment. This one will be empty so we will have to empty the nearest IKEA-store which is in Oslo, Norway and stuff it all together with x number of boxes of clothes and equipment into a container and ship it to Svalbard...

I am trying to get Icelandair to open up a flight-route from Reykjavik to Svalbard, to shorten the travel on vacation to Iceland, reduce the price and make it easier for visitors, but i hardly think they will do this favour to us;0)

The weather here in Iceland has been quite bad and changing in April, with snow, sun, rain, sleet, wind - all in the same day - several times a day!