My own review Spits­ber­gen 2023 – hap­py new year!

Sun
31 Dec
2023

Wat­ching the big wide world in 2023 was in part pret­ty pain­ful. Going fur­ther into that is not what I want to do here – that is done by others else­whe­re. And in con­trast, it is quite a plea­su­re for me to look back at my own year 2023, loo­king at “my” litt­le arc­tic world. From the begin­ning in the polar night to the first miles under sail with Mean­der in Nor­way to a long, beau­tiful arc­tic sum­mer in Spits­ber­gen, with good old Anti­gua, witht the beau­tiful Mean­der and the adven­tur­ous Arc­ti­ca II. And final­ly back to a lot of dark­ness – beau­tiful light, that is! – in main­land Nor­way.

I want to use the oppor­tu­ni­ty once again to thank ever­y­bo­dy who was part of this big jour­ney and who con­tri­bu­ted to making it so much fun! Big thanks to all of you, to fel­low tra­vel­lers, cap­ta­ins and crews, offices, fri­ends and fami­ly.

And now I am loo­king for­ward to 2024, to more time spent up north, to a lot of beau­ty and exci­ting expe­ri­en­ces shared with good peo­p­le. We will see what the year brings – it is the last year of the Anti­gua up north, and it may be the last year we can sail in Spits­ber­gen with the free­dom (within good regu­la­ti­on!) that we have enjoy­ed so far. Stran­ge­ly, we still don’t know when and how this will chan­ge. So the­re is not­hing real­ly to add to the update from Janu­ary 2023.

But in any case, I am very con­fi­dent that the sum­mer of 2024 will bring a lot of arc­tic natu­re and beau­ty.

I want to thank the year 2023 and all who were and are a part of it with this gal­lery of impres­si­ons. Tho­se who were with me on one or the other trip may reco­gni­ze good memo­ries … and for tho­se who were not on board, I hope you enjoy the pho­tos nevert­hel­ess. They are not neces­s­a­ri­ly all the 5 star num­ber one calen­dar pic­tu­re choice images, but rather repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of my own expe­ri­ence, enjoy­ing the wild beau­ty in silence and often in places that few peo­p­le ever have heard about, let alo­ne been to.

Enjoy!

With all this said, I wish you a hap­py near year 2024! May it bring peace to the world, at least some more than the pre­vious two years … 🙏

Spits­ber­gen review of (gal­lery)

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Do you agree that spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a gre­at re­source for any arc­tic enthu­si­ast?

Ever­y­thing is available for free, no pay­wall, no regis­tra­ti­on, no paid adver­ti­sing, and all this in spi­te of con­stant cos­ts and effort. Plea­se help us to keep it that way, wit­hout pay­wall and paid ads, and sup­port us through Ste­ady!