Another water day! The temperature is some degrees above 0 Celsius and it is raining. Clouds and fog in odd shapes roam the mountain ranges. Let's get in the dry suits for it is another turn of filming with the AWI diver group. We accompany them with a second boat, steered by station leader Séb close to the AWI-boat, to rendezvous with an iceberg. We really feel the low temperatures and the rain at this high speed. The young sledge dog of Sébastien is seeking protection behind his master. It seems that the young and shy canine doesn't feel that good about boat cruising yet. Before it wouldn't let one pet its ears now it's pressing his head trustfully into one's hands. After the boat ride Joe and Josef roll over board, with the cameras in water protected housings. Having mastered some balance problems - Josef was heavily under lead-weighted. Visibility seems to be bad but we see algae of different kinds and sizes, snails and a centipede of white and green colour and of course a lot of hyas. The latter are little crabs that want to be spiders, with large pincers and even longer legs. In the late afternoon it's Pete's turn to dive. The shots prove to be quite alright and usable, later. Joe and Josef are first doing the AWI divers, then they really get at it for themselves. During the dives we are accompanied by strange sounds, sort of steady whistling and whizzing. At first one is to believe that probably a damaged air pressure hose is the source of the noise. But then we are quite sure - that must be the singing of seals or whales. Chief diver Max Schwanitz backs our theory up: We heard the distant songs of seals.
Another strange thing we notice: On a layer of sand and pebbles there are big rocks, smoothly sharpened, the dwelling of some large kelp. They really stick to it in order to get grip in the swell. We felt the moves of the water ourselves at a depth of twelve metres. Between the kelp a hya is hiding. Obviously it wasn't expecting visits of frogmen, so it takes notice too late for escape and fells into abeyance, pincers up. The underwater world here is plunged with deep grooves as if Arctic giants would have brawled through the area wearing heavy boots. This is it indeed: If icebergs can not make it for the open waters and are drifted towards bays they perish in a bizarre agony. Frozen water hard as bone stamps and batters and beats and jolts and scrapes in some metres depth for days and weeks and forms deep grooves. Every now and then the slowly agonizing glacier pieces release a rock, having been caged for years and centuries. With a submarine roar it sinks to the ground and now offers hold and protection for plants and algae - to last till eternity…

Coast and crane is on our daily menu of Friday. We got to do some shots for the supporters of our project Kongsfjord - the Alfred Wegener Institut (AWI) - in the village and we do it with our camera crane. Technically, everything works almost from the beginning. The "round trips" over Ny Alesund area are done smoothly. Then we are off to the fjord but we happen to be clumsy. We took to the Norwegians' habit of not tying our boot-laces when we are walking just short distances. This proves to be almost fatal for our crane. Josef's boots get hooked to each other and the force of him stumbling and the heavy counterweights is too much for the poor tripod. One of its legs suffers a clean cut break at the shaft. Thank god Josef is not injured but how to tell our chief bear about our destroying the equipment while he is photo-frolicking somewhere else? Now it is vital to bring the tripod unseen to the saving workshop in the observatory. As a diversion we put up the other equipment in a way that suggests two cameramen just went behind the next tree. Meanwhile station engineer Henning Kirk shows us tools which - combined with Josef's abilities as a craftsman - make the tripod looking like new. "Now then? All done?" inquires an all of a sudden emerging Joe when we are taking the equipment down to the beach. And the positive answer isn't a lie at all. He didn't want to know exactly what we just finished in time.
The old black locomotive - not in operation since 1962, when the mining was shut down due to a blast leaving 21 people dead - gets moving again just by Josef's quick camera drives and Pete's zooms. Now we will deal with the part time dwellers of the Ny Alesund of nowadays - the migrate birds. One needs to be patient to get pictures of them when they move on the fjord. Well, they deserved some rest for they have travelled for about 5.000 kilometres to reach their nesting rocks just in time at the beginning of the short Arctic summer. It is a piece of luck to get a shot of a bird just raising from the surface or landing on an iceberg. Speaking of icebergs - it is so calm today, absolutely no winds and therefor no currents so that the icy blocks float like vessels without fuel. In the evening, we notice something quite important near the dismantled mooring of the Kings Bay Kull Kompani. Where ever melt water runs to the shore, the sea is somewhat milky brown like a cafe latte. The name "glacier milk" from the Alps gets a totally new meaning here in Spitzbergen. Which could be a problem tomorrow for diving and filming underwater. For there is loads of melt water up in the mountains and glaciers of Svalbard….

Today's destination bears to the nice French name of Corbel, a speleologist who worked at Spitzbergen. Corbel is a French research station of IPEV. After some kilometres we realize that our scooter has quite some difficulties. Sun, rain and higher temperatures since a week made the snow suffer much. Just above Ny Alesund we get stuck for the fsirst time - the scooter can't cope with four folks and the trailer load of equipment. After sorting out that that Problem with the help of Sébastien we proceed towards Corbel. It is a white yet wet rush over the slushy snow and more than one time we have to dismount so that Thomas can get over a difficult part. But after a few kilometers we are finally stuck. Standing on a knoll we notice that the melt water from the mountains has washed under the snow cover and has turned the snowy field into a large water bowl with an icy lid.
Thomas has to go back with the scooter so we proceed on foot and try to get on the ridges above the shore to find our way over the glacier streams. But soon we have to admit - we are stuck again. Our boots are not the right stuff. First, we already picked up some wet feet when trying to restart the scooter. Secondly we found it somewhat awesomely odd to guess about the dimension of the snow layers and how much the water floated under it. So, change of plan, we dump the Corbel action and decide to move higher up to the mountains on the south bank of Kongsfjord. On a summit covered with stones that the sun has already cleared of all snow we bring our cameras in position, as well as our Steyr Scout .675 rifle and the flare pistol, in case of polar bears. But we are more willing to make a shot with the camera rather with the fire arm if only one would show up. The glaciers are beaming in the sun and below our summit a glacier snout pours its waters towards the fjord. It is so absolutely quiet here, except the murmuring of the stream and some birds nesting at the isles at Zeppelinhamna. After about half an hour of filming we hear some distant cracks - a big part of ice must have left the calving glaciers somewhere. Then it is quiet again. On the stony summit there are some small flowers already peeking out just as the white cover disappeared; the stem only two or three centimetres, determined not to be an easy target for the harsh winds. We are now hiking from crest to crest, searching for the best positions to get panoramic shots until a dense cloud cover persuades us to cease filming for today and to return to Ny Alesund. On the way back we spot some researchers coming from the east and moving over the flooded plain down at the fjord They got the right stuff - on touring skis they manage to cross the glacier's melting waters safely and dry-clean. Lesson learned….

Another start of a meteorology balloon is to be filmed, as well as some shots from the tiny Ny Alesund museum, the northernmost of the world. Well, okay, everything here made by human beings may be considered as the northernmost of our earth. Now then, the museum tells the story of the coal mining activities here, in the more modern part of the former hut some screens give an idea about Arctic biota, its protection and about research. Quite well made, especially the comparison of two photographs, one of 1922 and the other of 2002. One of the glaciers at Kongsfjord was once reigning a frosty empire until the shores of the sea now it has humbly withdrawn to the flanks of the nearby mountain range. The black and white picture of 1922 shows a hunter with a rifle, standing at the opposite side of the fjord and watching. The one of 2002 sports a man in orange survival suit, taking the same position. It is only 80 years ago but millions of cubic metres of ice are molten...
The start of the small helium balloon is the first step of measuring and collecting data for the weather forecast. Another one brings an ozone sonde high up to the spheres. After the launching, Sebastien Barrault shows us the flight profile on the PC-screen via Google Earth. The constantly changing wind directions are clearly indicated by the track of the balloon. Some days ago it was heading westwards to the polar sea, yesterday and today it's way took it inward Spitzbergen. The last signal was radioed from near a fjord.
In the late afternoon we realize how quickly the weather can change. First there is heavy rain, later turning into thick sleet and shortly after it is snow. A strong breeze is soughing round the Blue House. At midmight there is already a thin snow layer on the roof. In the morning the snowing looses intensity...winter is still going strong against the on-pressing spring.

The small two-engined aircraft coming from Longyearbyen is scheduled twice today. Tuesday is the day of arriving and leaving, some of the scientists go home, some others get to Ny Alesund, for some this indicates that their own farewell is approaching. On one hand side you realize the necessity of meeting other folks and above all, your family from time to time. On the other hand side icy Svalbard obviously leaves no one cold.
Scientists Inka and Christoph today left the Blue House. Inka took a final walk in the morning round the village an to the Marin Laboratorium, somehow saying goodbye. Christoph really told us quite some things about laser, Lidar, aerosols, clouds, environmental events, climate and all the rest. And we think scarcely anybody was ever so pleased about some small chocolate gift from our native province of Styria – fair trade chocolate by the way. Mind you we cannot pay fees. But we find Aquavit and creative sweets far better and more personally than mere money.
At lunch time we have finished organizing cooperations and adjusting our tour plans with station leader Sébastien and Thomas. We cannot complain about French-Austrian relationship here.
Our team mate Josef - „The Third Man“ - arrives at an evening that is determined not to get dark. The baby aircraft flies in from the seaside, as an observer standing beside the landing zone one notices the changes of the last days caused by thawing – when we arrived one week ago the tarmac was still covered with ice and snow. In the meantime, heavy rain is dashing over Kongsfjord bay area. It is the first somewhat bad weather day since a week, fog is clasping to the flanks of the mountains. Josef just made it by the numbers because flight in this part of the world can only be done on sight.
The rain makes the evening a little bit less light compared to others, so sitting in front of the blue house on wooden banks covered with reindeer fur is not as cosy as it used to be though the temperature has been biting cold sometimes. Molecular biologist Sandra Heinrich delivers a pleading for the Arctic and gets quite passionate about it. Our thoughts start to become very similar to the feelings of all the other Arctic aficcionados...we do not miss e.g. mobile phones, on the contrary. However they are forbidden in Ny Alesund in order not to interfere with the sensitive measuring gauges...so at no time of the day a mobile sounds a tone...

It is our first real somewhat labor free day for we decided to dive deeply in into Norways National Day celebrations - but morons as we are we miss the champagne reception at the flagpole at Ny Alesund‘s centre.Though we have been awake, as Seb, Thomas, Francesco and others were brassing it off when walking through the village at 7.00 am and nearly blowing every house down.
So our group meet at the Blue House after breakfast and now we can remove the veil of secret from our preparations: Taking the mascot of Koldewey station - a garden gnome with beard, red cap and beer barrel and the warning poster of the Sysselmannen of Svalbard „Take the polar bear danger seriously - halt avstand!“ as a pattern, we created the station‘s outfit. Sandra, Maria and Inka prepare the red dwarves‘ caps, Max saw to the barre, Joe and Pete made a banner saying „Take the polar dwarf danger seriously - halt avstand!“. Spontaneous outbursts of laughter demonstrate tat our slogan meets the nescessities - but thank God nobody keeps distance. The Norwegian ladies are wearing their wonderful traitional clothes, as someof their male compatriots. Meeting for the march through the village is at the mess. Then the march starts with kind of daring music - Thomas calls it free jazz - and a lot of Norwegian flags. Also the youngest inhabitants of Ny Alesund, two sweet puppies with Norway‘s flags around their necks take part being carried by their mistresses, for sudden death because of overwhelming cutenes please refer to

http://www.haschek.co.at/may17/index.html

At house Mellageret at the bay lots are drawn to form up teams who have to fulfil tasks like collecting an assortment of six weird things within 15 minutes, which afterwards have to be used to build a snowman - though some rather resemble snow girls.
Max has been accorded a great sign of confidence: The Norwegians and the comitee of festivities - Master of Ceremony Seb, with his red cap a revolutionary dwarf chief - ordered him to be the volunteer to hold the speech. My profession as journalist has it that I have to listen to many speeches, mostly held by politicians. I am looking forward to such events just reluctantly. But as Max mounted the great trunk at Mellageret, which has been washed upon the shores of tree-less Svalbard coming from far away woods, and starts talking about people from eleven different nations who are helpful to each other just because they are there, when he tells about how Norway gained his independence he sticks to the facts and does not take to pathos; how Norwegians celebrate their day with their children, aware but relaxed and without nationalisms, and that it is sometimes called childrens‘ day - barn dag - this speech touches without stirring up. Especially the „Have fun today!“ at the end. I could swear some of the snowmen folk would now like to leave the chilly ground and have some drink with us....

Despite heavy celebrating the beginning of the weekend, the people of the hamlet are in good shape. Though Pete skipped the festivities due to a nap attack, he has got some reputation - that‘s the bloke who wasn‘t in house Millageret for socializing. On the other hand, Joe is tremendously fit and ha got a certain reputation as well, was one of the last to leave and covered sleeping Pete caring with a blanket.
Another bright and shiny day - when „evening“ comes the sun will have worked all day to minimize the icebergs in the bay - but we are not to know this yet. We have an appointment for an interview with Christoph Ritter, MAS in Physics from AWI Potsdam. Furthermore we will film an aeroplane with measuring instruments onboard which will liaise with the earth based LIDAR (Light detection and ranging) of AWI here in Ny Alesund. The plane comes in fro Kongsbreen in low level altitude, flies over the observatory heading for the small airfield - a conversed beautiful old DC 3, painted in red and blue - the „Polar 5“.
Christopg Ritter tells us about his work in the observatory: He is among others responsible for Lidar. The latter permanently sends a laser beam into the sky and detects reflected light. Clouds and small particles in the air - the aerosoles - are measured in this way. Ny Alesund is perfect ground for that because of the clarity of the Arctic air for there are less interferences as in e.g. Central Europe. Aerosols over Svalbard often come from the Eurasian continent because no emission by human activity remains at the very place of its origin. Events of pollution - the technical term“ may therefor wash out in sensitive natural areas. In general, these measurements are used for improving climate schemes.
We were determined - again - to go to bed early, but i turns out to be just a running gag: We have to finish the banner for tomorrow - nay,at 1.30 am it is today already - for the parade at the celebration of the Norwegian National Day. The banner will represent our Blue House, it isn tradition that every station has to have a certain appearance. Quite not easy at the end of the world, to prepare for a demo, moreover when it comes to making silly hats. On the way back from the lab we pop in the small-scale mining-museum - but now - time for the bunk....in two days we will be complete - The Third Man“ is on the way, our Josef.

Joe‘s first dive in the bay around the smaller icebergs. Not quite spectacular, many algae, a rather scarfaced sea ground from steady icy attacks. He spots just one „higher-ranking“ life form, a greyly speckled snail with a screwed shell. Meanwhile, Pete in his water tight survial suit plays with the floating small icebergs and ice floes and has got the camera with him. He finds that the inuit were quite right when they invented dozens of names for snow and ice. On the surface again, Joe tells of limited visibility, which was continually worsening. But the most important thing is: both housings for photo- and film cameras are tight, no water inside. Chief bear Joe breathes a sign of relief, though after a double of 25 minutes under water his hands are blue like having stolen blueberries bare handed. Mind you, water temperature is at minus one degree Celsius.
In front of the window of the mess room, we can see the temporary bird sanctuary Mainzodden that opens to the fjord. A flat area still covered with ice and snow but with a touch of brown and green of the spring already. Since today it is protected area again and off limits for visits. When looking carefully one is able to spot some fowl sitting there - a few of them is waiting for the thawing. The first wave from the south has arrived.
The small hamlet that makes Ny Alesund is sprucing itself up for Kings Bay AS serves a solemn dinner. „I haven‘t got anything decent to put on!“ - this is not only the terrified cry of the female scientists. Even the male folks lack sometimes clothing appropriate enough. Joe and I are not prepared as well. We hope there will be no cessation of sugar rations for the coffee for the not-neatly-dressed.
Just one thing: Smelly clothing and boots are scarcely met here - the responsible bacteria doesn‘t appreciate the climate here, obviously. And by the way: Our first week has quickly passed by.

It‘s Labo(u)rtag - we will accompany the poor algae on their last way to the final photosynthesis. In the morning we get a good mail-message from the Sysselmann - the Norwegian governour: The environmental department of the Office of the Sysselmannen par Svalbard gives us permission to do a helicopter flight for documentary filming reasons.
In the afternoon we have a meeting at the laboratory with scientists Sandra Heinrich from Germany and Marìa López Parages from Spain. We will shoot research on algae from beginning to end, as we have already accompanied the „catch“. Now the algae have been resting for two days in sea water vessels and are carried from the cold lab to the wet lab. There will then be measurements how they react under stress. Some kinds are quite flexible and can quickly cope with e.g. warming of the water. Other kinds like an endemic algae have problems to adjust. The terms of life are „adjust or die“. But time is fleeting for some kinds of life foms as conditions are changingf more quickly than some species are able to develop survival strategies.
The plants are perserved with liquid nitrogene after the tests, in order to keep the gen data available until the next test series at AWI labs in Bremerhaven. Such experiments keep biologists Sandra and Marìa busy. During the following interview about her work the German from Bremen is so quickwitted that I run out of questions to her answers. Later, when having a cigarette break just outside the lab the sun can‘t decide to sink at the horizon and paints wonderful pictures of light and shades at mountains and icebergs which have decided to stay at the fjord. The ladies indeed have a wonderful working place. And we are truely lucky bastards to be here. Back on the way to the Blue House Joe spots a reindeer, a quite young lass it seems. She isn‘t shy at all, even until Joe approaches her until ten metres with his camera. She is feeding joyfully on the meagre grass that just pokes out of the snow. Carlos Jiminiz, a Spanish scientist tells us about one of his observations. A herd of reindeers is moving forward slowly over a meadow during the Arctic summer, gently eating just the tiny blossoms. They are well aware that it would not be wise to destroy their base of living, when they want to live through the next winter.
At the evening in front of the Blue House - right in the dwarf corner, the scientist make the debt collection for the lab-cooperation. We cannot offer more than a tumbler of Aquavit for the challenges of documentary filming. But finally, it was more than one for the Ladies of Science - I guess, now we do have to talk to our bank.

The day starts ad 2.00 am - „Recently, in the Arctic...“ would by the comment of Ny Alesund's AWI dive chief Max Schwanitz. Joe takes his words for it, gets out and makes a photo of the station and the other buildings.
So, it's a day off this day, which doesn't man that the Arctic takes a break. We go Kelp catching with Max, Lars and Julian at Bloomsbrandhalvöya. Joe and I climb into the bulky orange colored survival suits which should help us not to freeze like flowers in the frost when going overboard accidentally. Out there in the fjord we see significantly more ice bergs and ice floes than yesterday. Some minor ones crash against the hull of our little boat at our ride over the water street. In front of some crags the buoys are set, along their ropes some plastic frames are dumped. Within their small "perimeter" the divers collect all sorts of algae, like "Laminaria Solidungula" or "Digitata" or "Alaria". Sounds useless, even weird? Well, but the welfare and spread of these life forms correlate to so many other simply because "higher" life forms. Today we see quite a few "higher" Arctic animals - a curious seal approaches us under the surface, it wants to play with the buoys but loses interest quickly and dives away.
At the slopes of the Bratliekollen just above the beach some reindeers show up…grazing the meagre meadows scarcely free of snow.
The last sample of Kelp is harvested by Max from the Hansneset cave - but before we had to haul an ice floe from the entrance using the anchor. Moreover we keep the signal pistol at hand for above the cave a polar bear on his beach stroll could show up. We make haste returning to Ny Alesund because of the freshening wind which brought quite a load of ice back into the fjord from the open sea. Back in the bay of Ny our small but brave vessel sports almost the quality of an ice-breaker. After the landing we are on our way to carry the barrels with the samples into the lab when somebody shouts: "Whales!" It's true, some 15 Beluga whales swim through the curtain of ice floes into the bay…it is almost a miracle, on our first day out we see the fabulous show of frolicking whales, how they display their white sometimes scarred hunches. It was a wonderful outdoor day, not only in cinematic terms but first and foremost emotional.