Sea kayak Scandinavia

The journey continues.............

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The next leg of Sea kayak Scandinavia has now begun, Jeff, Jim and Petr are on their way, heading off from Falmouth yesterday to Stanstead airport, flying into south west Norway to meet up with Erling Brox and members of the Stavangar Kayak club.

The team will spend several days here, training with local paddlers before catching a train North to meet up once more with Bent and Inge of Havnomaden Kajak Centre, based on the small island of Husvaer in the Vega Archipelago.

Their start point for this next leg lies just 30 miles south of the Arctic Circle and the journey, which is almost 1000 nautical miles of wilderness travel will be taking them through the stunningly dramatic Lofoten Islands, home to one of the worlds greatest tidal anomalies, the unique Maelstrom whirlpool!

From here they will continue North, destination Nordkap (North Cape). The team will stop here to toast Jim's Grandfather, 'Freddie Frampton' who was a Bofars gunner, serving on the Arctic convoys which delivered support to the Russian forces during the second world war. He was unique in that despite the several cold and harsh conditions he regularly volunteered for night watch duties, which Jim believes was because of the added incentive of an extra Rum ration to see him through the night!

From Nordkap the team will continue on through the Barent Sea, hopefully ending this section at the Russian border town of Kirkenes.

The team has been training hard throughout the winter months, so the recent cold spell has been an added bonus to their preparations. Jim and Petr started their kayaking with SKC, Jim is a dentist by profession and is now the expedition medic.

Petr, now into his third year of sea kayaking, it was only after a short period of paddling that he was taking on journeys of his own, a 2000 kilometre journey along the south and west coasts of Britain was his first major trip and now Sea Kayak Scandinavia is his second. Petr shall be both filming and photographing the expedition.

Sea kayak Scandinavia is an expedition to not only circumnavigate the Scandinavian continent, but also to explore the country, its people and its customs and to that end the team would like to establish as much contact as possible with any locals who may wish to meet up with them along the way, after reaching the northern section the guys will be looking for an overland route south to the Gulf of Bothnia, hopefully following Sami migration routes south and using cross country ski's to cover the 500 or so kilometres next spring, they will then be picking up their Paddles to continue on in their kayaks and close the gap back to Gothenburg once more.

Jeff, Jim and Petr are looking forward to the adventure and send their love to friends and family back home:)