Loo­king back at 2015 – Decem­ber

While I am tal­king about good old Anti­gua: right now, she is in the shi­py­ard. Cut into two parts. No ice­berg and now under­wa­ter rock are the reason for this, but the owner’s plan to make her a bit lon­ger. Half of the cab­ins will be a bit lar­ger from 2016. But the­re won’t be more cab­ins and no more beds than so far, so not more peo­p­le than we are used to, and that is important. And they say that a lon­ger hull is making for bet­ter sai­ling abili­ties. I am loo­king for­ward to a rene­wed Anti­gua in 2016!

Mean­while, the polar night has come over Sval­bard. What should have been a peaceful and silent arc­tic win­ter brought dis­as­ter to Lon­gye­ar­by­en just befo­re Christ­mas, when a snow ava­lan­che went into a housing area, stron­gly dama­ging 11 buil­dings and kil­ling two peo­p­le. So the year 2015, which has brought war and ter­ror to many count­ries, comes to a sad end also in Spits­ber­gen. Let’s hope that 2016 will bring as many gre­at adven­tures as 2015, but less sad ones.

During the sea­son of the short days, I am sort­ing the trips of the past, get­ting tri­plogs, vide­os and pho­to gal­le­ries rea­dy, which I recom­mend to ever­y­bo­dy who wants to lea­ve their home or office men­tal­ly for a moment to take a vir­tu­al trip up north. New trips are being plan­ned, with Anti­gua, with Arc­ti­ca II, with Ópal (in 2017), with Auro­ra. To Spits­ber­gen, Green­land and Jan May­en. A new focus on hiking, in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. This all takes time for a lot of thin­king and plan­ning. 2015 has seen 166 news and blog ent­ries on this web­site. Also new book pro­jects are get­ting on. Seve­ral ones are in the making, some in a stag quite advan­ced. So I can pro­mi­se new books, but I am not going to say any­thing about timing. I am not plan­ning an air­port, I am just wri­ting books. Nobo­dy is pay­ing me for that. So I don’t have to pro­mi­se any­thing and I don’t have to excu­se any­thing in case it takes more time. That keeps life easy (kind of).

I wish all rea­ders a good and hap­py new year! Gre­at trips in high or low lati­tu­des, health and hap­pi­ness! May­be our paths will cross, near the poles or some­whe­re in bet­ween. Under the mid­night sun or the polar light.

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