http://vagabond.fr/newsLog Booken60Wari Wahab (wari@home.wari.org)20080829-1552http://vagabond.fr/news/20080829-1552Peu après minuit, profitant de la marée haute, Vagabond a été halé sur la plage avec l'aide d'une pelleteuse mécanique ...
Not long after midnight, at high tide, Vagabond was hauled up onto the beach with help from a mechanical shovel and few people from the scientific base of Ny-Alesund. Our proud ship has not been on land like this since spring 2004. Now she set up for 3 or 4 days in front of marine biology laboratory, time to check carefully the hull, after 4 winters frozen in ice. We mainly want to repair the leaks from the cages protecting the propellers, lightly pulled out by ice during the last winter. For these few days, we set up on land, at the IPEV station. ]]>2008-08-29T13:52:00Z20080826-2002http://vagabond.fr/news/20080826-2002Une excellente mission scientifique s'achève. 3 italiens, un hollandais et une journaliste française, ont embarqué pendant 8 jours à bord ...
An excellent scientific mission is finishing. 3 Italians, one Dutch, and one French journalist, came on board Vagabond for 8 days, to study the only known warm springs in the archipelago. The biologists have been sounding carefully Troll and Jotun, at the end of Bock fjord, in the north of Spitsbergen. Water is coming out in various springs, at almost 30°C for the warmest. Nothing very impressive, but a flora that seems suddenly very luxuriant in this Arctic environment. The many samples also allowed to identify some small amazing fauna. We stopped again at Linda's hut, on our way back, and then we met quite a lot of drifting ice. But not enough to stop Vagabond! For the next 3 weeks, we will be at Ny-Alesund scientific station, preparing Vagabond for the next winter in Storfjord. ]]>2008-08-26T18:02:00Z20080820-0014http://vagabond.fr/news/20080820-0014Linda s'est installée à Mushamna pour un an. Son compagnon la rejoindra dans quelques semaines pour partager le long hiver, ...
Linda set up in Mushamna for a year. Her boyfriend will join her in a few weeks to share the long winter, at the very north of Sptisbergen. Every year, the governor is giving this trapper's house to a couple of volunteers. They have to carry on the traditional way of life of trappers. Linda prepared for us an omelet with Eider ducks eggs, gave some seal meat to our dog Zagrey, and offered us few fishes just out of the sea. Delicious stop! The camp will soon be covered with snow, the drift wood is already cut and burning in the stove. ]]>2008-08-19T22:14:00Z20080815-0938http://vagabond.fr/news/20080815-0938Après quelques derniers vagabondages dans les fjords des environs de Longyearbyen, la petite capitale de l'archipel, Vagabond s'apprête à embarquer ...
After few more days of sailing in the fjords close to Longyearbyen, the little capital of the archipelago, Vagabond is getting ready to embark 4 scientists and a journalist. The stop was also the opportunity to meet the team of an amazing hovercraft, designed for arctic oceanography. A fast machine that should avoid some research projects to charter an expensive ice-breaker, to work on pack ice. First snow is already covering the mountains, and the sun is getting closer and closer to the horizon, in the middle of the night. Autumn is coming! ]]>2008-08-15T07:38:00Z20080808-0155http://vagabond.fr/news/20080808-0155Nous choisissons nos escales selon la météo, et au fil de nos envies de découvertes. Il s'agit pour chacun de ...
We are choosing our stops depending on the weather, and according to what we wish to discover. We want to enjoy the short sailing period as much as possible. Vagabond is frozen in ice from October to July, and summer doesn't last long: it was snowing yesterday, in the northern part of the island... Wind was more than 80 km/h, Vagabond was pulling hard on her mooring! But today, the weather was great, the crew could watch very well about 15 walruses, and meet with coast-guards, who came to get a fishing net lying on the beach. Dangerous for local animals. ]]>2008-08-07T23:55:00Z