Adventure Shakedown In Winter

Amanda Hourston and Daniel Wakeham learn about their new 27ft yacht on a four-month cruise from Oslo into the Arctic Circle

- Amanda Hourston

The purchase of Snoopy wasn’t our first impulsive decision. In fact, without a series of spontaneous choices we wouldn’t have been on the outskirts of Oslo about to see our new yacht, with plans to sail her north during the Norwegian winter. This also wouldn’t be our first time taking a boat into the Arctic Circle. In 2014, my partner Daniel and I, along with our friend, Daniel Elves motored our 23ft Carson RIB from Orkney up the Norwegian coast to the Arctic Circle, returning after 29 days. We had made the voyage to raise our friend’s spirits after his recovery from testicular cancer.

It was an emotional experience and had led us to decide that living life impulsively bought exactly the type of excitement we longed for. Two years later, in the same RIB, we set out from Scotland again to live aboard while exploring the Norwegian coast for a year before settling down in Dyrøya. Now, we were about to embark on our third adventure to explore our adopted country, this time on a 27ft yacht, and with our bumbling young labrador, Aina at our side.

UNLEASHING SNOOPY