5 years later in 1995 I was still working with a commercial company and I was installing satellite TV systems on Ships of various nature. Among them was a Norweigan coastguard ship. I flew up to Bodoya in Norway to meet the boat. The boat was in port for supply so the timing was good.

Once on board we started a trip further north while still going in close to the shore. I worked and tested the antenna and late at night went to bed. In the morning when I woke up there was no land in sight anywhere. The idea was to test the system by finding the rough sea! while getting closer to Jan Mayen, the western most Norweigan island in the north sea. After 2 days we saw the island and the tests were found to be just OK. Thus my work was concluded. As we had a helicopter on board I figured they would find away for me to get off the boat. This was not to be the case for the next 5 days though. The helicopter could not fly far enough to get me ashore and they would be heading further up north to inspect the fishing boats in the north sea. A lot of Russian fishing boats were up there. It was kind of strange to see so many boats as we did once up in the helicopter. As I had nothing to do I was allowed to join the crew flying out to the ships. We hovered and lowered down the inspectors to various boats. It was good fun as I love being in helicopters.

We continued sailing north and one day we came very close to Bear Island (Bjoernoya). Being a radio amateur I was of course very interested in that island as it was its own entity and almost impossible to get access to visit under any circumstance.

The helicopter crew asked if I wanted to go ashore and have lunch with the team that normally live on the island and of course I wanted to. So once more we took off with the Lynx helicopter. It is quite an exiting moment when taking off or landing from a small deck on a moving ship. Luckily for me the pilot was the number one instructor they had in the navy in the whole of Norway so I figured I was in good hands. That he loved flying I had already discovered but when we flew in over Bear island it became even more evident. As there is almost no animals nor houses on the island with only about 5 -6 residents there at any time we did not need to abide by any flight restrictions in terms of height. We flew less than 30 meters above the ground and in between the valleys and it was an amazing flight. Low flying and with high speed was a real thrill, talk about roller-coaster ride.

We landed next to the permanent radio/Loran station they have on the island and jumped off. Me and 2 more guys were going to stay there for lunch while the helicopter continued for their work inspecting ships.

We were welcomed with open arms. The guys staying on the island was more than happy to finally have some other people to talk to. As they lived there 6-12 months at a time it could become a bit boring only talking to 5 other guys. We enjoyed the lunch and they showed us around the station and it was very interesting. While chatting with one of the guys about travels we ended up on the topic of South Pacific. I mentioned my backpacking trips and the charters I had done a few years before. The radio operator then says -well I was posted in Banaba in 1975 before heading out on some ships as radio operator. I could not quite believe it. There was never more than 2000 people on Banaba at anyone time (mostly imported Asian workers) and there was only 6 people on Bjoernoya and yet we were two people who had both been to same 2 km island in the pacific and manage to meet up on a just as small remote island in the North Sea of the Atlantic. I am not even able to figure out what the odds of a meeting like that would be but it seems to happen anyway. We continued our journey and when we finally cam close to land we were at the Russian border just above Kirkenes. From there it took me 5 different flights and a whole day to get to Oslo and then another day to get back home to Dalby, Sweden.

Strange as it seems I have two very similar experiences with very unlikely random meetings.

In 1989 I went to a small island called Rotuma in Fiji. To get to the island you have to arrange to live with the locals. There are about 200 people on the island and there are maybe 5 – 10 outside visitors a year on the island. Despite that I manage to have the seat next to a Danish guy (when flying from Copenhagen to Rome) who happened to have been to Rotuma also, 2 years after I was there.

I come from a small village in Sweden called Dalby. In my school there was 1000 students. In 1988 when I flew as a backpacker to Pacific and Australia I went to Frazier Island. There I see a familiar face and found out it was a girl who went to the same school as me just two years apart. She actually was in my little brothers class. That year these was 30,000 travellers from Sweden in Australia inclusive of all package tours. Now what are that chances that among 1000 people there are 2 who would travel to the other side of the world, get onto the same small uninhabited island, on the same day and actually meet.

I am sure there are mathematical formulas that would say it is more common than one might think 🙂 But it still amazes me.