Return to Murmansk
By Henry Swain
245 pp. 1996. Hardcover. $23.50
ISBN 0 85036 452 3
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In 1990, Henry Swain sailed the 34-foot yacht CALLISTO to Murmansk. He had been there 45 years earlier, on a Royal Navy warship escorting American merchant vessels charged with supplying vital aid to the Soviets. U-boats prowled the Russian coast and the Luftwaffe nestled menacingly in Norway, while the cruel Arctic winter offered its own deadly hazard – ice. Freezing spray on the fo'c's'le frequently threatened to capsize the ship unless chipped away.
Swain's return journey, along one thousand miles of rocky coastline and over the Barents Sea, held hardships of its own. But through it all he reveled in the boon of warmth, as the summer sun gleamed brightly in the Arctic sky.
“…thoughtful and illuminating…” —Lloyd's List
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