Getting the replacement part went better than what could be hoped for. Again coincidences came to our rescue. The part was ordered Monday morning, picked up by the airline company the same day, and shipped on the first flight to Longyearbyen, which was Tuesday morning. Then, we learned that a helicopter from Sysselmannen (the Governor) was to fly to Ny-Ålesund one hour later. Arne happened to know someone working in the Civil Aviation Administration in Longyearbyen, who picked up the part there and took it to Ny-Ålesund in the helicopter.

An unhappy bear nearly interfered with our scheme, though. There were many bears in Hornsund this summer. They just happened not to be there when we called there. In Ny-Ålesund we spoke to the skipper of a Russian boat who was in Hornsund some days after we had left. He had seen five bears, including a she-bear with two cubs. Around noon Tuesday, a few hours before we were expecting the helicopter, we happened to switch on the radio in a news broadcast. We hadn't heard news from the mainland for a long time. The first thing the voice said, however, was that a she-bear had attacked some Polish researchers in Hornsund who had to shoot it. It happened in Gåshamna. And that the Sysselmann was on his way to Hornsund to decide the fate of the two cubs. By helicopter, it meant. So, would our part have to wait in Longyearbyen? Fortunately, the Sysselmann had two helicopters. We got our part.

Later that day, while Jon Steinar and Helge put the engine back together, Barbara, Jos and I borrowed a motor boat and went on a trip round Blomstrandhalvøya not far from the town. This peninsula had become an island a few years earlier, because the glacier which linked it to the land had retreated. Now there was a sound a couple hundred metres wide between the island and the glacier front.

On the southern side of the island lies London, an abandoned English settlement of which only a couple of houses remain. We went ashore there and climbed the hills of the island. A blizzard came upon us, so we returned to London after just a couple of hours. We had some soup there and returned to the sailboat. Jon Steinar, Helge and Arne had fixed the engine, and Arne was serving his special coffee, based on a recipe he had got from Greenland.

We left Ny-Ålesund the following day. We had to return to Longyearbyen. One goal for our voyage was to reach 80°N, but we had no time for it now. We could might have been able to go as far as Magdalenefjorden but wouldn't have been able to reach 80° anyway because we heard there would be too much pack ice. It would have taken us at least an extra day, which we did not have. Barbara, Jos and I were to catch a flight from Longyearbyen and we had to be there in 56 hours. It was just enough time to make a few stops on the way back.

Our first stop was Engelskbukta, a bay north in the sound of Forlandet. There was no wind and the sea was like a mirror. We anchored in the bay and caught some sleep. A group of scientists had a camp nearby and a friend of Barbara was working there, so we visited the camp the next day. There was only one man in the camp, who told us that everybody else was on an excursion.

Our next stop was Ferskvasslaguna across the sound, a beach on Forlandet which usually holds a colony of walruses. We had already seen a few of these large animals, but only in the water. We searched the whole shoreline, but there were no walruses there.

Our final stop before Longyearbyen was St. Jonsfjorden. In Ny-Ålesund we had spoken to a couple who had wintered in their boat there, so we decided to have a look at the place ourselves. The place where they had been was too shallow for our boat, and we found a better place further into the fjord.

After a few hours of rest we lifted anchor. For me, it was the last time on board the Havsul. From here we sailed directly to Longyearbyen, with a few hours left before Barbara, Jos and I left Svalbard by airplane. The time had come when we had to return to our normal lives. My story ends here, but Havsul returned to Norway a few weeks later after seeing a new crew and new adventures.