PROGRESS REPORT NO.7 Friday August 26th. Sun Bay.
Snow on the ground, and on the deck, on anchor we've swung in close to the shore as the wind has veered around to the north-east and eased. The sun is shining and visibility is good-a sparkling Siberian day.
The gale is over and the outside thermometer shows it still minus two degrees
We're on our fourth day here, with messages of encouragement coming in on our e-mail of 'God Speed' and 'downhill'.
It will be downhill, but a 100 mile band of ice now blocks our way, where there was none last week.
With the Laptev Sea behind us , we think again occasionally of Jerome Collins who died there and particularly appreciate the lovely letter that we got from his great great grandniece Amy Johnson.
So we wait.
Paw prints on the snow 30 metres away on the shore show where our friend the bear was around last night-as long as there are none on the deck!
Initially on coming in here we considered it no bad thing to have a break from the constant 'bashing-on'. Now we are impatient to be on the go again.
One convoy went through westwards yesterday, a nuclear I/B with an ice-class Survey Vessel. Standing by outside our bay is the non ice-class freighter 'Toliati', awaiting better ice conditions.
Our watches have been stood down while here on anchor. We lie reading in our bunks and rise at will.
Breakfast, ad hoc, begins about ten and continues to mid-day, usually a creative nosh-up by Gary of eggs with some of yesterdays dinner left-overs, tea and Kevin's brown bread. ( No porridge yet ).
Through the afternoon, crackers or Ryvita with maybe tinned mackerel would keep us nibbling. Real coffee is running low, but there's plenty of 'instant'.
Slava is comfortable and confident about us, and with his colleagues on the ice-breakers. And we with him. As they say in Russian-'bceo kharasho'-everything's grand!
About eight or nine in the evening the galley begins to hop. It could be Michael or Gary or Rory, conjuring up the dinner. Potatoes, or rice or pasta would be the mainstay, with tinned meat, cunningly spiced, dyed or whatever-it always turns out good. About 10pm we eat, with a beer-and if it looks like there's nothing going to happen, a follower or two, with maybe a vodka for a nightcap.
Email connection with Brendan - is a high point of the day. We had a few days of sunspot activity, giving bad radio conditions which put us on 'cold-turkey'. It's grand to get the home emails again.
Right now, Friday 12 am, we're waiting to get updated word on the ice conditions and any prospects of getting on our way.
In the meantime, here in the high Arctic, we wait.
Cockpit With Snow
Garry Finnegan Reading
