The Voyage of the Avannaq

Published on 09.06.2011 - General Info

The sloop Avannaq along the south west coast or Ireland

Some of our visitors are undoubtedly wondering why Explorapoles is following a sailing trip which seems to have no direct connection with the polar regions.

Some of our visitors are undoubtedly wondering why Explorapoles is following a sailing trip of this kind which seems to have no direct connection with the Polar Regions and which would be more akin to a tourism voyage than to a polar expedition in a strict sense of the term.

These visitors are right to put the question. This is why we are publishing today a press release that explains our reasons for so doing.

Admittedly, the 2011 voyage of the sloop Avannaq has nothing to do with a polar expedition in the proper sense of the term, such as Explorapoles has understood it now for the fourteen years that we have been following the great professional polar adventures - and sometimes even the tourist ones - which unfold both in the Arctic and in the Antarctic.

But it is the spirit of this adventure that has interested us. The odyssey pursued by this 15-metre yacht since 18 May is nothing other than a symbolic link between two peoples and between two civilisations, the Greenlanders on the one hand (who symbolise the world of the Arctic), and the French on the other (who for their part symbolise Europe, of course). Since the Avannaq is not only connecting the two destinations of Normandy and Greenland, but is also seeking to establish a twinning between two towns.

It is therefore the spirit of this coming together of Europeans and the polar world that has appealed us and that has led to our decision to follow the nice little adventures of this yacht that has set out to get to know a region about which we know little or nothing.