Back to where it all started

Postcard 14th June ’25 | Longyearbyen, Svalbard

I am back.

Literally and physically. Back to where Postcards by Fabienne started.

Svalbard. That island close to the North Pole has more polar bears than inhabitants. With the beauty and the curse of the midnight sun and the polar night. Okay, right now, it is midnight sun.

Wait, didn’t she just relocate the pack to Denmark for her PhD? Yeah … apparently, you cannot get the Arctic out of that girl. And so she got herself not only into one but two “sidekick” projects for this summer.

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You read that correctly. I am currently up here for nearly the entire month of June, and then again for August and September. And I have been missing these postcards – apparently as much as you 🥹. So, after some personal hibernation and regrouping around some curveballs that life occasionally likes to throw at you, let’s get back into it.

I’ve been working together with the Norwegian Polar Institute at the Forskningsparken in Longyearbyen now for a little over a week, preparing for the deployment of two underwater recording stations that will help us analyse how long or “much” the fjords around Svalbard are affected by underwater noise from cruise expeditions. The super cool thing is that we work together with the industry to understand and regulate where necessary and effective in a joint mission and effort. And this also means I am about to board an expedition vessel tomorrow.

So the past weeks have been likewise exciting and busy since sometimes, things do not move forward/get decided at all and then just happen last minute 😊. And despite being pretty used to business travel from my consulting days, the first time travelling with scientific equipment added a whole new level of thrill. Latest, when the security officers at Tromsø airport pulled me out, I was afraid to open one of my carry-on Pelican cases, since the screens indicated something that was “with 100% certainty a bomb”. It was the small hydrophone I would use for handheld recordings during the cruise. At least my design for travelling with 20 spare lithium batteries went smoothly.

"The bomb" - last picture

Last week, I spent preparing the equipment. This includes both the careful settings, testing, and assembling of the sensitive scientific devices AND preparing the supporting and securing structures of the stations. As a marine acoustician, you get to work both – scientifically and practically. Usually, we get some help from really dedicated and skilled technicians, which is a beautiful mix of merging skills to make sure things are safe and secure while likewise not impairing any scientific data (e.g. things that could shield or influence recordings). In general, I was so warmly welcomed by the crew at NPI Svalbard, that I felt a bit sad to say “Bye” again.

Oh, and I got to help re-deploying another station close to the settlement!

Maximising the time up here meant long working days with no weekends or such. But my partner in crime in this project and I spent as much time as possible at my favourite Huskies café. And so, I am sitting here while writing this postcard.

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I am honestly super nervous about the coming week. I have all the equipment loaded in a van, which I will drive to the pier tomorrow and board the vessel. It is kind of a special thrill to simply throw sufficiently expensive things in the ocean, hoping you will find them again – AND that you configured and set them all right so that they will have collected data. Something tells me that you will never get over this fear despite having triple-checked everything.

Hug,