This photo was taken in the Gulf of Bothnia (about 63° N) in the spring of 1996.

We navigated among drifting ice floes and mountains of packed ice, some the size of large passenger ships. As you may notice, my lips are getting numb already. The cognac was very welcome!

So, why this web site?

To be honest, this website exists only because it is possible. Nothing essential would be lost should it disappear. The only important pages here are those telling the story of s/s Hermes, the cargo ship that my grandmother's father Captain Henrik Skog commanded for more than 14 years. In 1917, during World War I, it disappeared in the Arctic Northern Atlantic without a trace - crew and all: THE STORY OF THE HERMES.

A dream that we had nursed since 1992 became true in 1997. We were finally able to move aboard Scorpio "permanently" and regard her as our actual home. Now we can spend our time in a more gentle climate and avoid Scandinavia during the dark and cold seasons. However, as Finland is fantastic during the few summer months, we spend about two months of the year every Scandinavian summer at our cottage by the lake of Saimaa.

Although we are fulfilling our dream, we realize that we are taking a big risk in many ways. Loosing touch with relatives and friends is one of them. We hope that maintaining an active website shall provide us with a practical interface for keeping contact with our loved ones.

This site tells where we have been, where we are now and where we may be in the future. It also tells about our yacht Scorpio and about other things more or less related to the cruising lifestyle, which might be of general interest.

We invite our friends to join us in one of those wonderful places we visit.

Update, November 2014: The text above was written about 15 years ago, so much of it should today be read in the past tense. We are still aboard Scorpio much of the year, but the yacht is now for sale and our real home is in a place called Puumala in Finland. We have lived our dream but we are now, for various reasons, which are or will be explained elsewhere, moving on with new objectives, fullfilling other dreams. However, until the yacht is sold, we will continue to update this web site.

Please check our present surroundings at The Location.