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Twenty eager water enthusiasts and globetrotters will embark on an unforgettable journey towards Spitsbergen this summer aboard Het Boot, a bright blue, steel beauty of a ship. Spitsbergen is a group of islands approximately 565 km north of Norway and a dream destination for sailors and sea kayakers alike.

On the 15th of May Jos, Staf, Frank and Jan will set off aboard the “blue giant” leaving the harbour of Blankenberge behind heading northwards towards Norway and it will take them about 10 days to reach the Norwegian harbour town of Bergen. Bergen is the second largest city of Norway which locals tend to call the “City Among the Seven Mountains”.

Shortly after this, the men will sail along the Norwegian coast towards Harstad, where Kris, the founding father of Het Boot, will join the crew. Captain Jos will then guide our bright blue beauty including the crew through the capricious Lofoten, an archipelago in the Nordland province known for its rich fishery tradition. The next stop is Tromso, also known as the “Paris of the North”. This city is situated on the 70° north latitude and as with all other places in the Arctic Circle, it is blessed with the midnight sun above the northern horizon from the end of May until mid July.

Jan leaves the boat in Tromso to return to our lovely Belgian summer and Tile joins the crew. Jos, Kris and Tile will then begin the 5-day long crossing to the west coast of Spitsbergen via Sorkappland, the most southerly point of the archipelago that Spitsbergen is part of. Our brave sailors will then continue their journey via the Isfjord towards Londyearbayen, Spitsbergen’s capital. There Tjerk, Cindy, Daan, Lode, Aaron, Sarah and Marieke will join the crew. The family of 7 will venture deeper into the Isfjord with a couple of Klepper sea kayaks. After 7 days of exploration, Lode and Kris will fly back home from Longyearbayen. Xaveer will at that point join the team of sea kayakers who will be paddling along the west coast of Spitsbergen followed by Het Boot. The team is expected to return to Longyearbayen around the end of July/beginning of August after three adventurous weeks of sea kayaking and sailing.

There the last leg of the journey will start. Sarah, Marieke and Xaveer will fly back to Belgium from Spitsbergen and Tim will join the sailors to help them traverse the sea back to Tromso. Once the team arrives in Tromso, Daan will set off on a journey of his own: cycling back from the north of Norway all the way to Belgium. Het Boot will continue its journey back to Harstad where Freddy and Tom, 2 keen divers, will join the team to search for the sunken wreck of The Belgica, with which one of the first expeditions to the Antarctic took place. Once the divers have finished admiring the underwater world near Harstad, Cindy will take a train to Oslo and fly home from there. Captain Jos and his crew will embark on the final part of the expedition, via Bergen back towards Blankenberge. The scheduled arrival is around the end of August.

Read more: http://www.svalbardvaren.be/home.html

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under Svalbard - Het Boot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.