Ko de Korte

 

Dutch, born as the oldest son of a farmer in Zeeland, a region known for its conservative religious community. The only way to escape was probably to fly away like a bird. Ko already has a restless feeling during his high school period, a feeling that made him want to escape from his surroundings. Mostly he went to the nearby coast, to watch seabirds. Sometimes he dreamed away by reading a book about brave young men travelling to the unknown regions of the earth.
When he finished high school, Ko went to Amsterdam to study biology at the Free University (1961-73). The university was probably the only place permitted for him in this city of the devil. His study gave him many chanches to fly away.
After some more settled years the restless feeling come back and in 1965 Ko made his first big sea voyage on a Norwegian cod fishery ship. The bird finally had a chance to fly away into the unknown. In 1966, Ko worked as a mess room servant on a Norwegian coal boat to Spitsbergen. He left the ship after its arrival in Longyearbyen. From that moment the bird keep on flying and visited the Polar regions innumerable times.
The result of his job is documented in more than 70 scientific publications.
Beside all these scientific activities Ko also organized many tourist voyages into the Arctic for the “Stichting Plancius” in Amsterdam. When in 1992 Oceanwide Expeditions took over the Stichting Plancius Ko continued to put his energy into this tourist business.
Ko has always felt an enormous attraction to untouched nature. Like the poet and ship’s surgeon Slauerhoff it seem that Ko has a restless feeling and a strong desire to find the last untouched places on earth. Driven by an unrestrained energy he has traveled from one remote place to another searching for the perfect place where he can feel at home.