Grilling Arctic char and loon/diver. (The diver got caught in a net set for char.) The meat of the diver was superb. Turner Island, just south of the entrance to Scoresbysund Dryas octopetala Hot water spring. This is about 5 feet in diameter. The red boat is La Belle Epoque, owned by the Austrians Jurgen and Klaudia Kirchburger. Ther circumnavigated the Americas, did the Northwest Passage, wintered over in a remote location in west Greenland on this boat, spent time in South Chile, Tierra del Fuego, the Antarctic, and South Georgia. Check out their website: fortgeblasen I met them 10 years ago in S Iceland & we stayed in touch. We got very close. Minor ice field offshore. We sailed to where the ice had cleared, according to the continually updated Danish ice charts available online, and we did not encounter any major icefields.
We spent time in small fishing villages - Talknafjordur, Grundarfjordur, Olafsvik. Lots of cod and haddock to be taken, and much wild food to be gathered. Blueberries, great for cereals, skyr, and pancakes. To the right, sea rocket - the pods are tender & crunchy, and these make up the salad, center. In the frying pan is a pasta sauce made of shaggy mane mushrooms (Coprinus comatus) that Mike found. The Northern Lights can be seen most nights, if the sky is clear. Karl decided to shorten his trip and to fly out with Mike from Keflavik International/Reykjavik on the 6th September. Yesterday an English sailor, Jonathan Taylor, joined us, to accompany me for the leg home. He is really wired about this. We push off from Grindavik on the south coast of Iceland on the 6th, weather permitting. I look forward to the trip home. And to returning to my home and to my friends whom I hold dear.
On polar bears. In East Greenland, one always carries a bear gun. This means a rifle or shotgun that will kill a bear. Among the Inuit, carrying a gun in country is a given. Wherever we landed and walked, we always carried a loaded gun. I saw a bear, on a small islet in the Bear Island archipelago deep in Scoresbysund, east of Milne Land. He knew he was spotted and he went to ground. We circled the islet close in, but did not see him again. The crew missed out. Going ashore to look for him was not an option: he would have swum away, or attacked us. Bear spoor was everywhere in some places. A lot of tracks, some huge, some fresh. Polar bear have wide feet; this is an adaption for swimming and for walking on snow. A lot of bear stool. One stool was made up of white bear hair. I have read of male polar bear killing and eating the cub; possibly this was what happened. Often we came across driftwood that had been partly s...
Wishing you safe travels and fair winds. I hope to keep up to date through the blog here in Dublin.
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