Pyramiden

Yesterday we returned to Longyearbyen and tried to waste our time, we failed, miserably.  We arrived and tied up, Mum then took the Mim and myself to the museum that is paired with Longyearbyen university.  It was very impressive.  The exhibition was on the whale hunters that were first sent to Spitzbergen in the eighteen hundreds.  It had a lot of very good reconstructions including a stretch of mine shaft that you could crawl through.  They had a lot of stuffed animals as well, this was rather gruesome but very effective.  After that we went to a shop to see if there was anything that Mimi wanted to buy.  There wasn’t.  In the evening we returned to the restaurant Kroa and I had a pizza, which was far to big for me to eat.  I took it back to the boat and had it for breakfast and lunch today.

This morning I awoke to the cry of pancakes.  I had a lovely breakfast consisting of four pancakes and a slice of pizza.  We left at eleven when we had re-stocked on water and coca-cola.  We headed north toward Pyramiden and raised all three of our sails.  As we went north Mum decided that I needed a publicity photo.  We managed to spend a full hour photographing before she decided that there was one that didn’t make me look to silly.  Mimi also climbed up to the top of the mast and took some amazing photos.

Mum in full trip-out gear – good wellies!

During the trip we began the great Northabout bake off.  The team who baked today was Mimi and Rob. They made a rich chocolate cake with a thick chocolate fudge sauce with a raspberry coulis.  It is amazing but you will throw up if you have more than one piece.

When we reached Pyramiden we tied up at a pier and I was astounded.  Pyramiden is an abandoned Russian mining settlement.  It was abandoned in 1998 I think, but when the residents were evacuated they were given no time to get ready.  On the pier is a wooden pillar which protrudes three feet above the floor of the pier.  It is surrounded by five old chairs and has what look like two very old dice resting on it.  It is really eerie.  We went for a walk around and I love it.  There is no one there, just old empty buildings which your not allowed to go in.  Apparently there is still toilet paper on the rolls.  We plan to spend the entire day here tomorrow and fly the drone, finally.

The day after tomorrow I go back to England. I find that really hard to believe.  I will write once more and then I’m back in England.  I hope to be walking to the north pole in April and going round the north pole in Northabout.  I don’t know what’ll happen for those but I hope to do another blog.  Goodbye.