While being asked by Mikkel to join sailing, directly after attending the EMSP conference in Oslo, I dropped everything and left all my appointments behind as I decided to walk aboard this beauty of a boat.

Some times in life you just have to hop on an opportunity. Especially the ones that bring hope. And this one brings a whole ocean of it!

So who am I getting the privilege to be asked aboard as a member of the crew on this sail? My name is Steinar Årset, and as so many others that has been onboard this boat I have MS. A diagnose I got 7 years ago. My way of dealing and overcoming the fear and sorrow it can be, to receive such a message, has been to walk out in to the wild. And to do so, I ended up running a project called «From adversity to North Cape». A 3.000 km hike over more than 170 days. A project that rose awareness towards MS, but most of all inspired others with MS not to lose hope.

Here I am sitting onboard this boat, thinking, that it feels like I just met an older brother I didn't knew I had. I walked 3.000 km, Oceans of hope sailed about 50.000 km! An older brother who I have so much to learn from, an older brother who can help me to reach my own goals in life. It is now two days since we left Oslo, and according to the plan we would have ben close to Denmark by now. But a little incident, a broken starting engine, stranded us at a smal island called Gullholmen 50 nm north of Gothenburg. Only halfway to Copenhagen, and after trying to fix the engine failed, we had to accept the fact that this is the end of the adventure.

But out of this broken engine a new spark of hope rises in me. It all feels like this was ment to be.

The fantastic project, Oceans of Hope, have been sailing around the globe. The sail needs to continue! With the crew, and the most inspiring captain Jens, we now have been discussing how to make one of the next projects for Oceans Of Hope, to sail the coastline of Norway from the very south to the very north. There is now a hope of reaching this goal. Let us together make this hope turn into reality.