31-Jul-2004 -- Imram is a prototype of a 12.50m aluminum sailboat, the Integral which is designed to sail in arctic waters. After a successful travel from France to Greenland in 2003, the 2004 sailing program was focussed to reach the north of Norway and then traverse the Barents sea to explore remote Spitzberg islands, the closest you can get to the North Pole on liquid water, that means without an icebreaker. With a group of friend we had mounted a real expedition and, among other targets, confluence-hunting was in the plans.

These regions well above the Arctic circle are rich in confluences, since parallels are quite close to each other and offer a fantastic landscape, prefectly explored with a sailboat. The weather is unforgiving for many months a year and this summer announced itself to be the perfect confluence-visiting season. After a successful visit to 69N16E, the next not-visited spot (or so we believed at the time) on our route North was 70N20E, a nice round number.

On July 31st, 2004 we left the harbour of Tromso, where we had fixed one of our rudders which had broken in the collision with a small iceberg, off the coasts of Greenland. The plan was to sail through the last fjord and aim north toward our arctic adventure, passing through 70N20E on our way. The night, or better the clear sky in a magic sunset glow, typical of these latitudes, saw us leaving definitly behind us the amenities of land and steer first North East and then North.

With little wind, the engine of Imram quietly propelled the boat for almost 40 miles, getting closer to our target. The sun was well up, and a magnificent sunny day presented us with mountains capped by perennial snow, degrading in gentle hills constituting the edges of the fjord. In front of us, we could see the mouth of the fjord, and the start of our open-sea trip nortward.

At about 0540 UTC we reached the 70 parallel and, with a known technique for confluence-hunting on heavy boats, tuned for 69N16E and 43N10E, we started following it eastward till crossing the 20 meridian: 70N20E was visited and the board GPS frozen in the ritual picture (Picture #5) at 0551 UTC.

Time to appreciate the magnificent scenery of the norvegian mainland to the South (Picture #1), the shores of the fjord to the East (Picture #2) and to the West (Picture #3) and in front of us the last small islands to the North (Picture #4) before the nothingness of the Barents sea, before preparing a hearthy breakfast for the confluence hunting crew: a Neapolitan speciality, fried pasta, to celebrate a birthday on board.

Soon the time to hoist our sails came, and off we were toward the arctic North (Picture #6).