Page "Willem Barentsz" Paragraph 27

When June arrived, and the ice had still not loosened its grip on the ship, the scurvy-ridden survivors took two small boats out into the sea on 13 June.

Barentsz died at sea on 20 June 1597, while studying charts only seven days after starting out.

It is not known whether Barentsz was buried on the northern island of Novaya Zemlya, or at sea.

It took seven more weeks for the boats to reach the Kola Peninsula where they were rescued by a Russian merchant vessel, and by that time only 12 crewmen remained.

Ultimately, they did not reach Amsterdam until 1 November.

Sources differ on whether two men died on the ice floe and three in the boats, or three on the ice floe and two in the boats.

The young cabin boy had died during the winter months in the shelter.