Redditor Groke used Google Earth to show that sailing north from Norway, it’s possible to sail all the way around the world to Antarctica without ever touching land…
The feat is just barely possible, as the oceanic route brushes past several islands along the way. There’s also the pesky polar ice cap to deal with, so we’ll have to wait for global warming to take its toll before actually attempting to sail this stretch.
The route begins near the westernmost point of Norway…
It proceeds through the Greenland Sea between Greenland to the west and Norway’s Svalbard Islands to the east…
After crossing the polar ice cap, the course then passes through the Bering Strait, just missing Alaska’s Seward Peninsula to the east and then skirting west of Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island…
As the course passes through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, it runs barely east of Kagamil Island and then Chuginadak Island…
The closest call on this course’s entire route is in Samoa, where it passes between two tiny Samoan islands, east of the island of Apolima and west of the island of Manono…
From Samoa, it’s smooth sailing to Antarctica. Here’s the full route once again for reference…
