Sunday, August 12, 2018

A Circumnavigation of Spitsbergen


So its time for the "what-I-did-in-my-summer-holiday" set of posts, and this year it was a circumnavigation of Spitsbergen in the yacht Valiante (above) with Sail Norway. Spitsbergen is the main island of the Svalbard archipelago, and we also visited some of the other islands.

A lot to post and I haven't quite worked out the order but the first thing to note is that, yes, its north and cold but that's what I like. The other thing to note is the bug I've mentioned a few times came back so was stuck in my bunk for a bit, but eventually was able to get back into the watch system.

It didn't feel good not to be able to pull my weight, but found it reassuring that this something that even the Delos crew have to do every now and as documented in a recent video of them.

There were of course polar bears:


Fee-fi-fo-fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman!

More likely it was the bacon that was grilling at the time!

4 comments:

my2fish said...

That looks amazing!

JP said...

Even though I missed a few bits (eg bird cliff) it was spectacular.

It turned out to be worth taking the drone all the way up there even if it did get a bad case of gimbal jello for some clips

Bursledon Blogger said...

Looks fantastic

JP said...

It was!


(.... when I wasn't feeling ill)