Jan Mayen is an island. Norwegian island. It consists mostly of a 2277 m
high volcano called Beerenberg that erupted last time in 1985.
Inhabited by small meteorology and military crew.
Golf stream keeps the temperature comfortably stable most of the time, somewhere between +6 and -6 C. According to sunshine statistics it is supposed to be an especially gloomy place. The weather consist mainly of fog.
Appealing by all that is the difficulty of access. The island is surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of Arctic sea, stormy in winter. Basically you have to have your own transport for crossing 500 km from Greenland, 600 km Iceland or 1000 km from Norway plus a permission from the Norwegian government. Unless you are a Norwegian meteorologist, military personell, journalist or scientist.
Starting from 2010 it's only allowed to land on one (or two) place and to camp in the same spot. There are very strict rules due to nature protection and inheritage protection. The latter has to do with stuff left behind by Dutch whalers long ago; also was there quite an amount of action during WWII.
Jan Mayen could have been the original Svalbard but the name travelled further north-east. The island tried on many names until a cartographer from Amsterdam christened it after captain Jan Jacobszoon May in 1620.
Sigurður or Siggi is an Icelandic guy and he owns a boat that can handle the waves of the Arctic. It has circled the world four times and was built in 1996. It takes about three days to reach Jan Mayen from Northern Iceland and makes 1-3 trips each year, taking on 10-12 people, including eight tourists. After being on waiting list since March 2014, I’ll be one of these eight in June 2016.
The 10-page information booklet gives a hint on what has gone wrong on previous trips. But maybe it’s just precaution.
Trip to Jan Mayen makes it necessary to also visit Iceland, the country that wins first price in the contest for the most mystic Nordic landscapes based on pictures alone.
Golf stream keeps the temperature comfortably stable most of the time, somewhere between +6 and -6 C. According to sunshine statistics it is supposed to be an especially gloomy place. The weather consist mainly of fog.
Appealing by all that is the difficulty of access. The island is surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of Arctic sea, stormy in winter. Basically you have to have your own transport for crossing 500 km from Greenland, 600 km Iceland or 1000 km from Norway plus a permission from the Norwegian government. Unless you are a Norwegian meteorologist, military personell, journalist or scientist.
Starting from 2010 it's only allowed to land on one (or two) place and to camp in the same spot. There are very strict rules due to nature protection and inheritage protection. The latter has to do with stuff left behind by Dutch whalers long ago; also was there quite an amount of action during WWII.
Jan Mayen could have been the original Svalbard but the name travelled further north-east. The island tried on many names until a cartographer from Amsterdam christened it after captain Jan Jacobszoon May in 1620.
Sigurður or Siggi is an Icelandic guy and he owns a boat that can handle the waves of the Arctic. It has circled the world four times and was built in 1996. It takes about three days to reach Jan Mayen from Northern Iceland and makes 1-3 trips each year, taking on 10-12 people, including eight tourists. After being on waiting list since March 2014, I’ll be one of these eight in June 2016.
The 10-page information booklet gives a hint on what has gone wrong on previous trips. But maybe it’s just precaution.
Trip to Jan Mayen makes it necessary to also visit Iceland, the country that wins first price in the contest for the most mystic Nordic landscapes based on pictures alone.
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