Ice Bears and Kotick by Peter Webb, Seafarer Books, £9.95.
This is a book for everyone from armchair travellers to diehard adventurers. It tells of an extraordinary journey made by two men, just for the fun of it. They rowed and sailed in an open boat through pack ice, past glaciers and icebergs, to achieve their ambition of circumnavigating the island of Spitsbergen, Svalbard - at “the top of the world.”
They survived encounters with polar bears and whales. They experienced extreme hunger and capsize. Along the way they learned about themselves and about life, and experienced a frozen wilderness that may well disappear before this century is out. There are some stunning photographs, too. John Ridgway, the first man to row across the Atlantic, describes the book as “an evocative tale of good old-fashioned adventure amid one of the bleakest landscapes on earth - vividly and thoughtfully written, an inspiration.”
Inspiration is the right word. The author is one of those people who doesn't accept no for an answer, and if someone says “It can't be done,” he simply sets out to prove that it can be.
Reading this book may just persuade you to stop putting off that great getaway, and simply go for it!
