Back in Longyearbyen we disembarked, but unexpectedly stayed an extra day in Svalbard and had time to explore the town. But then, finally, the time has come to leave Svalbard.
July 3 and 4
In the morning we arrived at the port of Longyearbyen and moored at the pier. It was a beautiful, clear morning, which made it all the more of a bummer that we were about to disembark. But what a fantastic trip it had been and how much we had seen and experienced. Now that all the locations are together on the map, I realize we have been in so many places.
Our route back to Longyearbyen
on the Vessel Finder app.
There is a webcam in Longyearbyen harbor that takes a picture every 15 minutes. On the day of arrival we boarded the ship with the zodiac boats and missed the opportunity to have our picture taken by the webcam. Coming back, we managed to get photographed while on board. Those two red jackets, that’s us.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Mid-morning, we were the first group to disembark and would be taken by bus to the airport. Our hostess had heard that our flight was delayed, so she decided to take a little detour to fill the time. This gave us the opportunity to stop by the Global Seed Vault.
The seed vault on Spitsbergen is an underground repository, 120 meters deep in a mountain just outside Longyearbyen. Since 2006, it has stored food crop seeds from around the world, supplied by national seed banks. Svalbard was chosen as the location to build this seed library because it is a safe area from both tectonic activity and military conflict. In addition, the permafrost protects the environment so that even if the power goes out, the storage area remains cold enough for weeks to prevent damage. All countries can have seeds stored for free that will be safe here for hundreds of years.
The first time a country collected seeds from the Global Seed Vault was in 2015 when the seed bank in Aleppo was damaged by the civil war in Syria.
Change of plan
Arriving at the airport, it turned out to be more than just a minor delay. Our plane could not take off and the entire flight was canceled due to strong winds. Buses brought us to the Funken Lodge Hotel in Longyearbyen, where we were offered lunch and waited to see what would happen next. Hours later, it was confirmed that we would not be leaving Longyearbyen that day. All passengers were divided into two hotels where we would spend the night and hopefully fly out the next day. We were taken to the Radison Blu Polar Hotel. During dinner we received a text message that we would fly the next day at 3:30 p.m. This meant that our night at the hotel near the Oslo airport and our flights home had to be postponed by a day.
This polar bear died of natural causes.
Once that was all taken care of, we were happy that we would have time to explore Longyearbyen afterall, which we had not had time to do when we first arrived. The first thing we did was go outside at midnight to watch the midnight sun in the world’s northernmost town. Can you believe these photos were taken just after midnight?
The next morning we explored Longyearbyen. Unlike our first day in Longyearbyen, when there was a big cruise ship in the port, now there were only a few tourists and it was quiet, so we were able to enjoy the real Longyearbyen experience.
We departed in the afternoon and flew from Longyearbyen back to Oslo and home the next day. We look back on a fantastic trip and an unforgettable experience to be able to discover this unique landscape with its beautiful flora and fauna. Svalbard you’ll be in our hears forever!
