Monday 1 September 2014

Day 9, 29.08, Blomsterbukta and Ella Ø

The sun was shining and we were all getting ready for a busy day, with two landing in front of us. We started out with Blomsterbukta (meaning Flower Bay), were activities like hiking, kayaking and wandering around enjoying the nature were on the list. As we got ashore we could all understand why the bay was called Blomsterbukta, as the area was full of flowers all though we were by the end of August. The flowers and their surroundings together with the iceberg just by the landing beach made the view breathtaking. Also the fauna showed itself from it best side as very many of us got one or many glimpse of the musk ox. The hikers got beautiful hike up to a lake colored red by the sediments and across several small mountains, while the guides enthusiastically told everything there was to tell about the surroundings.
The kayakers got an amazing trip with quite water and a very close encounter too five musk ox, which showed of their climbing skills. The guides also demonstrated how a rescue would be done on the open sea in case someone falls out. 
We went back to Fram and continued on our journey. Our next stop was Ella Ø, a beautiful area with around dozen of houses. Ella Ø is a large island at the mouth of Kempe Fjord in the inner Kong Oscar's Fjord. It was named by Nathorst during his 1899 expedition as Ella Ø, after his wife. The station was continuously manned 1931-1943 and 1947-1952. It was also used by Lauge Kock's expedition as a summer station in 1958. These days Sirius patrol is using it as their base during the summer months. From here they use the summer to supply all the smaller huts around the area. The five Sirius patrol members and two of their dogs were supposed to have left the area for the season, but luckily they were still here. The guest therefor got a chance to meet the real Sirius patrol and see how they lived during the summer. The guests also walked around in the area enjoying the surroundings with its flora and fauna.

The rest of the evening we enjoyed on board. And as most of the guest enjoyed their evenings in their normal procedure, some of the guests were getting ready for Arctic night, meaning sleeping under open sky on Fram’s deck.