Crossing Svalbard on foot always sounded like a tempting idea to me. But how do you do that with a messed up leg? Just find the shortest crossing! Driving into unchartered waters on the East Coast of Svalbard until we are only 7.5 km away from the anchorage of the day before in Hornsund and of course already far onshore according to sea charts. From there it’s just about climbing up the ice and crossing two glaciers for a mere 5 km to cross Spitsbergen from East to West. It’s a beautiful view into Hornsund. For some reason our ship didn’t want to pick us up in Hornsund again half an hour later. Somehow they didn’t invent the warp engine yet and couldn’t shrink 12 hours driving distance into 30 minutes. So we had to walk back again and cross Spitsbergen West to East. Makes a double crossing of Spitsbergen with a messed up leg in one day. A few more years to go and we can make the passage with the ships…