The whole shooting match
05 August 2010 | Lancaster sound
Liz on behalf of Dermot
Quite a day that threw us in at the deep end, but rewarded us with some of the drama the arctic has to offer.
We had set off on Weds morning running downwind from Pond Inlet into Eclipse Sound, which was all pretty uneventful. We then headed north up Navy Board Inlet as it went into the evening (still reasonably light as always). When it came to my watch at 9pm the wind freshened and headed us, the temperature dropped, the ice had thickened, it started to sleet and progress slowed dramatically. My trawlerman's survival suit came into its own however and my two-hour watch passed reasonably comfortably with only about 3 miles progress to show for it.
When I came onto my next watch it was properly snowing. The ice had really closed in. Although the reports had on one to two tenths ice cover in Navy Board, this was a dramatic underestimate. Andrew and I shared a long 4-hour stretch, poling bits of ice out of the way- surprisingly hard to do. At one stage the engine died briefly as fuel had siphoned out of the working day tank back into the main tank. The place was really quite ethereal whilst we were drifting. We could see leads in the ice closing up before our eyes but we were just able to make slow progress, nudging apart floes of ice. Fortunately the wind had died completely.
There were groups of 5-6 seals looking like they were having a great time, jumping half out of the water. This seemed like prime potential polar bear territory and sure enough I spotted one about ? mile away. We readied the rifle just in case it took a dislike to us and went for a closer look. It soon went the other way however and disappeared. No photos yet but very exciting.
It was cold. The sea temperature was -2.8 degrees and the fresh water snow was settling on the sea. All in all, quite amazing and beautiful.
We eventually made it through worst of that near impassable ice with some still significant patches of ice that we mostly could skirt around.
When I woke for my next watch (having had a bit of a pummelling in my forecastle bunk), we were into Lancaster Sound with blue skies and sailing, albeit having to tack up the sound.
All in all a tough but fabulous day