Colesbukta I

There are cabins all across Spitsbergen, quite a few of them fairly close to Longyearbyen - and we went to visit one of them last weekend. UNIS has a few cabins available for its employees, and the one we went to is situated at Kapp Laila in Colesbukta. A daring adventure for us, going out into the wild, all on our own, into polar bear-land etc. But it turned out to be not so very different from going to a cabin on the mainland. Except the part about carrying emergency beacon, satellite phone, survival suits, warning flares and of course, firearm.

It seems I shouldn´t have made jokes about heavy skies in Bergen, because that´s what we got. Saturday was grey, but no wind and mild temperatures (5°C).

Our cabin is number 2 from left.




Nice exterior - and classic interior.


The cabin was moved from Todalen near Longyearbyen in 2000 (by a bulldozer, or so we´ve been told). A couple of years ago parts of it was rampaged by a bear, and one wall had to be rebuilt (no one was in the cabin at the time!).

A couple of other cabins nearby on the beach.



This one had an ingenious hinder against polar bears.


Interesting stuff on the beach. We found one big remnant of whale.



And several remnants of civilization. In this case, probably Russian civilization.


At one point, the Russians (most likely) made core holes to take out samples, to check for oil or coal in the ground. Pieces of core samples were still lying around.


And piece of reindeer.


For supper: frying pancakes on the beach.


And of course, plenty of fooling around with the survival suits. They were a real hassle to get in and out of, but warm, safe and handy for swimming.


Thomas looking snug.


... and floating away.


Just kidding - it´s William. He waded out, as it was really shallow.

And finally, we just had to pose...


You wonder how we got there? We didn´t float, we came by boat (hah! it rhymes!). A rather small, open one.

On the way back on Sunday we stopped in Grumantbyen, an abandoned Russian mining settlement. I haven´t had time to load photos yet, so more about that in chapter II.