Summer 2025: as Far North as Capsula Could Take Us
In summer 2025, we sailed to Svalbard. It started as a joke in our apartment in Zurich when Stefano pointed at the map and asked: “How about we go there?”. My immediate reaction was a hard no. We’d quit our jobs to finally relax, not to chase new, more expensive ways to stress ourselves out. Nine months later, we were casting off from Copenhagen, heading north anyway.
→ Watch the video of our journey to Svalbard
The Norwegian coast was the perfect prelude to the rest of the trip: dramatic fjords, fishing villages that seemed frozen in time, anchorages so quiet we sometimes thought we were alone in the world.
But the real adventure started in the Northern Norwegian town of Hammerfest. Ahead of us laid five days of open water sailing in freezing seas where storms were routine. Our chat with a former coast guard on the pontoon only deepened our fears. He was impressed that we attempted this with our 10-meter boat and worried when realising that we did not have survival suits on board. These heavy, insulated, waterproof "spaceman" suits are a standard safety requirement in Arctic waters, where you can only survive minutes should you fall in the water.
We waited for the right weather, refilled our fuel and water tanks, and sailed north, away from land. On the fifth dawn, Svalbard’s mountains emerged from the horizon. We had made it, but relief was short-lived.
We stepped into another world. For a month, we oscillated between awe and fear.
We sailed within meters of glaciers towering four times higher than Capsula’s mast. We passed so close to icebergs that we could scoop chunks for our cocktails. Curious walruses popped their heads near our hull (though later we learned this was probably territorial, not friendly).
Life up there was a constant, low-grade hum of hypervigilance. Trying to avoid ice while at sea and polar bears while on land meant we were always "on”. We bickered over where to anchor (usually because one of us was tired and the other was being stubborn). Sleep became fragmented, and not only because the sun never really set.
One night, thinking we were in a safe anchorage, we woke up to the sound of ice crackling around us, louder every minute. While Capsula can safely take us across oceans, her hull is not made to resist the pressure of ice. We dragged ourselves into our waterproofs, hauled the anchor in silence, and spent the rest of the night threading Capsula between ice floes that could have trapped us in that bay.
By the time we reached the Northern tip of the archipelago, at 80°N, far beyond where most people ever sail, we had abandoned our plan to circumnavigate the main island, Spitsbergen. Too much ice on the east side for us to consider it safe. We felt a mild disappointment, and a strong relief.
Before returning the rented rifle and start the journey back south, Svalbard had one last surprise: Pyramiden, a Soviet-era mining town abandoned in 1998. It didn’t need imagination to feel like a ghost town. Inside the former hospital, medical reports and jars still lay scattered on the floor. Outside the school, children’s swings swayed in the wind. As if human life had vanished mid-sentence. We walked through the streets with rifles slung over our shoulders, a mandatory requirement in polar bear territory. I couldn’t shake the irrational thought that we’d turn a corner and stumble into some forgotten Soviet scientist still guarding his lab.
Returning to mainland Norway was strange. We were exhausted and we had been genuinely scared, but we also loved the version of ourselves that had weathered it. We felt the quiet satisfaction of knowing we could handle the cold, the bickering, the sailing into uncharted bays, the logistics of such an expedition and the 3:00 AM ice emergencies.
So, when Stefano pointed to Greenland for our next adventure, I felt this knot in my stomach, knowing exactly how stressful it will be. And that I’m going to say yes anyway.
Anne - Feb 4th, 2026