{"id":13489,"date":"2021-01-18T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theprofessionalhobo.com\/?p=13489"},"modified":"2024-06-18T07:33:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T11:33:18","slug":"sailing-around-svalbard-in-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theprofessionalhobo.com\/sailing-around-svalbard-in-the-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"What is it Like Sailing Around Svalbard in the Arctic?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ever since I did an expedition cruise around Newfoundland<\/a>, I not only gained a renewed love for the nautical way of life, but it stoked a massive curiosity in visiting the high Arctic. So when I learned about the docu-series called 80 Degrees North: Sailing on Top of the World<\/em><\/a>, I was all over it. So much so, that I corralled the filmmakers into an interview (which you can see below) about sailing in the Arctic (specifically sailing around Svalbard), what it’s like, what they discovered, and a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to live on a 48-foot sailboat with eight people and film a documentary while having this adventure of a lifetime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jump right into my Awesome Interview Series videos on YouTube here<\/a> – and please give it a thumbs up, leave comments and subscribe! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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See also: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting my Feet Wet on a Sailboat in St. Martin<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 Months of Sailing the Caribbean<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

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\"What
Please share this on Pinterest! <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Where is Svalbard? <\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not sure where Svalbard is? Join the club. I had to look it up…up…and up some more; it’s way up there on the map, about as far north as you can get before hitting the North Pole, level with the northernmost parts of Greenland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Svalbard and Jan Mayen together are officially known as remote jurisdictions of Norway, under the sovereignty of Norway, but also kind of their own country (but not really). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan Mayen has no permanent population to speak of, unlike Svalbard which has a small population of humans that is outnumbered by polar bears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you thought Norway was north, Svalbard puts things into perspective; it’s an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean that is halfway between Norway and the North Pole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the people of Svalbard live in Longyearben, which is where you’ll fly to if you go (it’s a three-hour flight from Oslo). There are only 40kms of roads in all of Svalbard, and to reach the other settlements (including the northernmost settlement in the world) you’ll need a snowmobile or boat (depending on the season). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which means….Brady and Alex and the crew of SV Isbjorn were very well-suited for their trip, sailing around Svalbard. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Longyearben,<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

80 North Series – Backstory<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2010, Brady Trautman and his brother Brian started sailing together on SV Delos<\/a> and created a YouTube channel chronicling their sailing adventures around the world. They did a bang-up job, because today the channel has 640k subscribers vicariously sailing along in their weekly 30 minute videos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Blue \u2013 a film producer in her own right \u2013 caught an episode years ago, sent a spur-of-the-moment email to the crew, which led to a Skype call, and two weeks later she flew to South Africa to hop on SV Delos for a passage across the South Atlantic…and eventually years later, when she disembarked, she took Brady with her and they started their own sailing school called Cruisers Academy<\/a> and accompanying YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, in 2017 the crew of SV Delos was invited by sailing friends who run 59\u00b0 North Sailing Expeditions<\/em> on to their boat on an Arctic sailing expedition around Svalbard. The Delos crew, experienced sailors as they were, had only sailed in the tropics, so this was a stretch for them, and also an opportunity to explore one of the most untouched areas of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, in summer of 2018, eight crew members packed themselves onto the 48-foot SV Isbjorn to sail around Svalbard for three weeks, crossing the 80th<\/sup> parallel north in the Arctic, where the sun never sets in summer (and never comes out in winter). <\/p>\n\n\n

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\"The<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Almost everybody on the sailing expedition were filmmakers of one sort or another, so collectively they captured an insane amount of footage of the trip, which includes some of the most dramatic landscapes on the planet, along with the critters that inhabit them like polar bears, walrus, beluga whales, and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviewing the footage, it became apparent they had a lot more to commemorate this mission than a 30-minute episode could possibly do justice to. So Brady, Alex, and one of the other crew members Kiril, spent the next two and a half years piecing together a four-part docu-series called 80 Degrees North: Sailing on Top of the World<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch the interview below (or directly on YouTube<\/a>), and read more about it below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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