Some Pleasant Coastal Shipping

Published on 28.06.2010 - The Northern Passage 2010

Borge Ousland's island

Borge Ousland left Oslo on 23 June to undertake his great adventure of circumnavigating the Arctic pack ice (or what's left of it during the summer). For the moment, he's doing some coastal shipping along the west coast of Norway. And everything on board is OK.

Obviously, we haven't yet got to the very heart of the great adventure. For that, Borge and his shipmates will have to reach the extreme north of his country and sail due east in order to experience the great cold of the Polar Regions and realise the extent of the melting ice there.

For the time being therefore, it's more a question of some fairly grandfatherly coastal shipping along the Norwegian shores. A pleasant voyage furthermore, which allows the faithful followers that we are to discover landscapes and stories of which we were unaware. As an example: the story of the town of Alesund which was almost completely destroyed by a terrible fire in January 1904; we learn that with 800 buildings destroyed, there was in fact only one death to be deplored. Borge slipped in on this occasion a rather tasty anecdote: at the time of that tragedy, the local prison warder, seeing the flames approaching, had no other solution than to open the doors of his establishment to let his prisoners escape. He benefitted from their exit to shout at them in every direction that they shouldn't forget to return the following day!

On 04 July, Borge's trimaran the crossed factitious border of the famous polar circle and the Lofoten Islands came into view. On the same day, the Norwegian explorer took advantage of his voyage to make a stopover on Manshausen Island, an island that he happens to own.