Sailing Ice to Ice

Put our boats in order not of when, but of where — south to north — and they make one continuous voyage: from 64°58′S off the Antarctic Peninsula to 90°00′N at the top of the world.

Silver Wind through the Drake Passage to Antarctica, and the same ship again two years later, forty days up the Atlantic coast of Africa. Silver Origin drifting across the equator to Genovesa in the Galápagos. Delfin III deep in Pacaya-Samiria on the Peruvian Amazon. The Farah upstream from Luxor to Aswan. Evrima island-hopping the Antilles, an island a day. A kettuvallam sewn from jackwood and coir in the Kerala backwaters. Three Belmond barges across three Burgundy summers. An open boat through the iceberg water of Disko Bay.

Ninety-five nights afloat, eleven thousand nautical miles, three crossings of the equator by water — and as this page goes up, Le Commandant Charcot is underway from Longyearbyen, writing the final chapter at the North Pole.