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Far, far North: Longyearbyen - 78° 13' 40"N 15° 36' 45"E

By Kate and Sean -
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Longyearbyen is the capital of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole.  As much as 60% of the landmass is covered with ice and less than 10% has any vegetation.  Svalbard has a population of 2500 people, 5500 walrus and the region boasts 3000 polar bears. Svalbard has an arctic climate and is considered a desert due to its low air humidity.  In the summer, the sun does not set for 125 days. And, following Niklas' phone call  that caused a sharp left in our summer plans, this is where we have landed! It has been a considerable process to get us here.  To be able to sail in Svalbard, a permit is required from the Governor of Svalbard.  Part of this permitting is submitting a detailed travel plan, crew information, search and rescue insurance, communication requirements and polar bear protocols.  This all needs to be submitted and approved at least a month prior to the trip starting. Niklas took care of ...
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Helsinki - 60°10'24" N 24°57'57" E

By Kate and Sean -
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Helsinki Cathedral And so continues our tour of the great cities of The Baltic!  Delaying our departure from Tallinn for the day proved worthwhile and we had a great sail across to Helsinki. BUSY!  We were on the ferry route and ferries must run between the two cities every half an hour or so. The Gabriella passed us three times! We also crossed the shipping channels and kept a sharp eye out for Russian warships !  Will we really fit in there?? Arriving at the marina, it was our first experience of threading Chinook between posts into her berth.  She is 4.5m and we wiggled into a 5m berth. Hurray for rub rails! We managed to get secured without harm to ourselves, the dock or other boats.   There is (supposedly) room for another boat on the other side of us. Boy, that's not a lot of spare space! After taking a walking tour, we felt far more knowledgeable about Helsinki, and indeed Finland. As you know, we are big fans of the walking tou...
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Baltic Sea - 59°42'54" N 21°33'27" E

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At sea. We were crossing the Baltic Sea, going from Helsinki to the Swedish archipelago. It was almost midnight and the sun had just taken a quick bow beneath the horizon. A ferry was passing us, under engine in the twilight. I took a picture of the ferry as it went by us and hailed the night watchperson on the VHF radio. “Your ship looks marvellous in this light. Would you mind taking a picture of us?” The next day, as we sail into mobile phone coverage, an email arrives. Sent via email from the Viking Ship Gabriella, from Watch Officer Ronja Åström Looks like he used his binoculars to get a closer picture. He said in the email, Here are all the pictures we managed to take, sorry we don’t have that good cameras here. No worries, Ronja.  Those pictures are perfect.
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