The coastal village of Sortland inside Norway's Arctic Circle and the laid-back 300-days of sunshine a year village of Pipa, near some of the best tropical beaches in north-east Brazil, may seem to have little in common other than fishing. They do, however, share an important resident.

Sortland-raised Torben Frantzen, 36, one of the heirs to the Findus frozen fish empire, happens to have been on one of the first charter flights from Scandinavia to Brazil and fell in love with it.