Northwest Passage Expedition – daily update 29 July

Got up at 4:30am after 8h of sound sleep. Got some work done on my mobile phone, later got some work done around the house. Also cleaned up the area around Hermione’s launch site a bit and picked up items that we had left there on launch day but might want to take with us to sea, like a manual air pump.

PICKING UP LEVEN

At 9:45am the three of us drove to town to pick up Leven, who is staying there. He found a room at a B&B for almost exactly the same price as Chez Shawn, but with more amenities; however it was the last room available. It makes sense for Leven to be walking distance from Hermione, of course, and the rest of us enjoy staying where we are.

GROCERY SHOPPING

Went shopping at Northern again. Most groceries are more than twice the price you would pay in London. The team bought food for three days, because we are now expecting to leave on Thursday morning.

NEW ROWING-SCHEDULE REQUIRES SNACKS

I also bought some snacks, even though I struggled to find good ones. Until today I hadn’t quite realised that the current plan is that all of us continuously and repeatedly row 1.5h, then steer 0.5h, then row 1.5h, steer 0.5h, etc., for at least 12h non-stop, while the weather holds. This means that contrary to my initial plans I have to have snacks, because even eating bits of standard expedition food rations from my giant thermos bowl is going to be very difficult while steering. It’s impossible while rowing.

GOOD SNACKS HARD TO FIND

Only found some beef jerky so far. There were only three types of nuts, almonds, which I don’t like, pistachios which are too messy, and pecans which had no best before date and looked suspicious. Peanut butter is not for me. Rest was all stuff full of sugar like gummy bears, cookies, chocolate, etc., so not my kind of (savoury) snacks. Will check out Coop tomorrow.

HERMIONE LOOKING GOOD

After our shopping spree we checked in on Hermione. All looked good. Leven noticed that the emergency outboard motor had loosened from its attachment point, so he tightened the screws. The ropes and fenders all looked good, partially because the Bergmann crew had made a few changes to our set-up, preventing the risk of excessive wear and tear.

BANTER WITH BERGMANN CREW

The crew very kindly offered that we could join them for breakfast. We thanked them but regretfully declined, after a bit of a chat and plenty of banter. We didn’t want to impose and the crew seemed busy preparing for the start of their next journey, which was scheduled for later this week.

CHOWDER, CHEESE MELT

Next we had breakfast at the same cafe we had been to before (where we had had muskox & caribou burger). Mike had char chowder, the rest of us the Chef’s Special: cheese melt on beef with fries. All food was delicious and for $20 (£11, USD 14) each extremely reasonably priced for high up North.

DOING SOME COOKING

I spent about 1.5h in the kitchen, preparing vast amounts of stir-fried vegetables to have as sides for the coming days, as well as a bolognese sauce (ready-made from jar, but with added herbs, spices, peppers, onions, garlic, and minced beef) for the pasta we would have for dinner.

LATE AFTERNOON RUN

Thereafter, I went for a gentle 7k run in very strong winds. The 3.5km towards town were slow and hard. On the plus side, the 3.5km back to the cabin were superfast and easy.

DINNER

The pasta with bolognese sauce for dinner went down well. We even had some grated parmesan and jalapeño slices.

MORE BANTER & STORIES, SHAWN STOPS BY

After dinner, everyone shared some stories of adventures past and we laughed a lot. Later that night, Shaun stopped by to pick up the air-cured char from the frame next to the water where the strips were hanging. He had one of his daughters and a friend of hers with him.