When I woke up this morning, the head cold or whatever I had felt building up in my body over the past couple of days seemed to have mostly gone, which is good. To keep the divine balance of the universe, fortune blessed me with significant muscle ache all over my body instead, quite possibly a related symptom.
SEAL INSPECTION
The morning passed with rest time and watching a curious seal circling the boat and inspecting us. Judging from its facial expression it was not entirely convinced that the wild-haired creatures it was looking at were kosher, to be frank.
PHONE CALLS
Leven spent a good part of the morning on phone calls to our mystery rower, who is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting for us at the moment from Paulatuk, and to the people the latter had gotten us in touch with, such as local fishermen and the local police officer, as well as calls to our usual points of contact such as the Coast Guard, our Cambridge Bay buddies with the Paulatuk connection, Shawn, and our expedition HQ, Joanne. Naturally, our skipper also continuously kept an eye on the forecasts.
DECISION TO START OUR ROWING SESSION EARLY
At around 11am Leven informed the rest of us, that due to a change in forecasts we were now going to start rowing a few hours earlier as planned at noon. As our skipper was going to have another conference call at 2:30pm, we were going to stop for a break at that time, then continue rowing from 3pm. There were going to be two options for the rowing distance: set anchor after 10 miles (11 statute miles, 18km) and call it a day, or go for a full 23 miles (26 statute miles, 42km – marathon distance!). We agreed to play it by ear. After all, we were going to have to constantly fight adverse currents and at times adverse crosswinds (sidewinds with some headwind thrown in for good measure).
PULLING THE ANCHOR
I hadn’t been asked to lift the anchor in a few days, as Mike always seemed to be ready and happy to do it. So at first it felt like a nice divergence to be asked to go for it. Sure enough, the first few metres of rope, before the point where it was attached to the remainder of the heavy chain and the added reserve anchor, were very easy to pull in.
‘MEIN KAMPF’ MIT DEM ANKERSEIL / ‘MY STRUGGLE’ WITH THE ANCHOR LINE
But suddenly it felt like the anchor, chain, or rope had gotten stuck. Nothing moved. I struggled for a minute – all on my own, faced with this task – while my annoyingly witty team mates engaged in some friendly banter about the German and “his/my struggle.”
LIFTING THE DAGGER BOARD
Finally one of them, Mike, found it in his heart to detach himself from his bantering commitments for a bit and to assist me. Even the two of us together couldn’t move the rope an inch. Then Leven suggested we lift the dagger board and – surprise – the rope untangled itself from that same dagger board and was now just as easy to lift as before. We saw vast parts of the duct tape wrapping, that I had applied around the damaged parts of it three weeks ago, sink to the seafloor, but decided to worry about that another day.
SEEN OFF BY THE SEAL
At 5 minutes past noon we were rowing again. The seal popped up again with its slightly disapproving facial expression, as if to make sure us bunch of misfits were going to be gone for good.
GREY WEATHER
The weather continued to be miserable. Cold. Damp. Grey. With the occasional drizzle that would turn into full-scale rain just long enough to ensure that everyone had put on their way-too-warm waterproofs, then stopped again. Only to start the whole exercise all over again once everyone had undonned their waterproofs. It almost felt like back in Old Blighty.
STRONG CURRENTS
As expected, there were very strong adverse currents, apparently part of a system that reaches all the way to Alaska.
BAILING
Every half hour, when one of us relieved the helm, they did some bailing before heading to the stern of the boat and taking the steering handlebars. The situation has slightly got worse, compared with yesterday, but not too badly. Despite the flat seas (meaning less bailing required than in choppy seas) we have to bail up to 7 buckets an hour with Mike’s tiny aluminium thermos coffee cup, going through the usual twisted motions and contortions with our bailing hand.
PICTURESQUE LANDSCAPE
On the plus side, building on the previous couple of days’ developments, the landscape continued to become more varied, hilly and beautiful. We passed by some stretches of ebony cliff edges, interspersed with grassy pebble beaches. The hills further inland were mostly covered in fog.
FLYING BLIND
While crossing a somewhat bay-shaped section of the shoreline, the fog had moved all the way onto the sea and for a troubling but thankfully short quarter of an hour I, being at the helm at that time, had to navigate mainly based on cloud formations respectively brighter and darker patches of the fog around us.
AFTERNOON BREAK
At 2:20pm we anchored and fired up the internet. For us common crew it was a welcome opportunity to check social media and check for messages from friends and family. For Leven it was a busy conference call. We always make sure to offer to get him some tea or a heated-up expedition ration, but he almost always declines.
DECISION TO DO 10 NOT 23 MILES TODAY
The conf call ends without tangible results but some progress in getting closer to a solution. Shortly after 3pm we are moving again. After having taken three hours for five miles (5.5 statute miles, 9km), the decision is made to go for the anchoring location in another five miles and not to attempt to do 23 miles today.
SINGING SEA SHANTIES
We sing some sea shanties along the way to pass the time. In a whim, our skipper came up with modified lyrics to the Wellerman to match the situation on Hermione.
DURDLE DOOR
We arrive at our anchoring location for the night at 8pm and it is quickly getting dark. There are magnificent sea cliffs next to us, including a rock arch reminiscent of Durdle Door. We learn, that interestingly, Mike has a cat called Durdle. When our Royal Marine collects his sleeping bag from the very front of the bow cabin before starting his rest time, he discovers that the little plastic hose that empties water from our methanol fuel cell into a large plastic container, had dropped out of the container and simply started to discharge the water onto the cabin floor. As if that’s what we had needed, of all things…
