Mid-November 2019 we weighed anchor at Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, bound for Hawaii.  We had been lured northward by many of our cruiser friends who had sailed Alaska and entertained us with stories, each more exciting than the last.  Glaciers, eagles, sea otters, grizzlies, sea lions, whales, orcas and anything else you can imagine.

When you are cruisers, like us, who live by the motto; We have no plan and, by golly, we’re gonna stick to it! This is the kindling that sets fire to your imagination.  No way we could say no to a temptation like that.

When we upped anchor we, just like the rest of the world, had no idea that a tsunami called Covid would close the world and destroy our plans.  Out trip northwards was planned to take one year, more or less, then we would be relaxing in the sunshine in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.  There we would wrestle with the thorny problem of deciding if we are going west across the pacific and finish our circumnavigation or down the central American coast and back through the Panama Canal.

Today we write August 2022, three years after we left Polynesia and we are just now on our way south through Canada from our Alaskan adventure.

Was this adventure worth three years of our lives?

To answer that question, the first thing we need to do is forget the two-year hiatus that Covid caused.  No matter where in the world we had been, Covid would have reared its ugly head and caused a two-year delay.  Nothing we could have done would have changed that.  Let’s instead talk about our trip from Port Angeles USA to Alaska and back.

Typical Vinni and Carsten weather – it rained constantly for the first month-and-a-half.  Every day was cold and wet.  Countless were the times we asked ourselves why we had sailed northwards – we could have stayed in the tropics where clothes consisted of a bathing suit and a T-shirt.

But, as those of you have followed our blogs know, we sailed through surrealistic landscapes, each one more ungodly beautiful than the last.   Snow-capped mountains, coves and small bay with a beauty that will break your heart and narrow straits that both test your sailing skills and reveal a landscape that makes you utter Wow! Under your breath.

I won’t bore you by repeating all those places – you’ve read about them in our blogs.

We were lucky with the weather the three places where it really mattered; Tracy Arm, Glacier Bay and Pack Creek.

We took thousands of pictures and hours of videos.  We haven’t been able to use all of them in our blogs, but many of them deserve to be shown.  Some of them will have been shown before – we apologize, but you can then enjoy them once again.

The question we posed at the top of this blog still remains;  Was it all worth it?  All the time and heartache involved.  When we reach Mexico we will have sailed more than 9000 nautical miles since leaving the Marquesas – the earth being, as we all know, 21,600 nm around the equator, is almost halfway around the world.

The answer is a resounding YES!  The trip has been unique and we’ve sailed places only few cruisers come – especially Danish cruisers.  Many of the places we visited can only be reached if you arrive on, your own keel – and how many people will ever have that adventure?  When we were at the very north of our trip, the glacier in the Arctic, we made the decision that when we turned our bows south, Capri would be homeward bound.  From here on in, Capri would be heading for Denmark.

We’ve agreed to stand by that decision.  Oh, there’ll certainly be some swings and roundabouts, a few places we simply can’t bypass, but our course has been laid and we expect to dock Capri at the pier behind the Opera late in August 2024.  Mark the date in your calendar so you won’t plan anything else.

Here comes a cavalcade of pictures from Alaska. Take the time to look at all 4 videos – the pictures are fantastic. The last video is from Petersburg on the 4th of july. Here we see, amongst other things – the noble sport of log-rolling