Tuesday 23 August
The ice just keeps getting better and better. After yesterday's perfect arch, we now have an iceberg with three arches in three directions! It warrants a little detour and a 360 degree sight seeing round (that's all the wriggles you see us do on the Spot tracker - either checking out cool icebergs or avoiding icy bits!).
The most amazing one we see that day must have been a large half dome: a perfectly formed dome about 25, 30 meters high, 20, 25 meter wide and at least 15m deep. Enough to warrant a dinghy trip and the 'Greenland Polar Bear Photo Shoot'. The crew on board was shooting photos from the dinghy underneath the dome, the dinghy crew was shooting photos from Polar Bear
with the dome behind, appearing from behind an iceberg, disappearing behind another...the opportunities and pretty sights were endless. Thank God for digital!
By the time we made it to Ankervig, Hildur had already arrived and anchored stern to the shore, with a stern anchor. Some depth sounding with the dinghy showed a pretty steep shelf, so it was the only way to go for us as well (and a long shot at that), so the kedge anchor and line were dug out of the forepeak and off it went in the dinghy to be deployed while we dropped our
main anchor. All turned out perfectly.
Ankervig is a local holiday 'resort'. Some of the local Inuit from ITQ were holidaying there for two weeks in their makeshift tents, hunting seals and muskoxes for food. A Danish group of scientists were there as well, with a fancy mess tent and some proper tents, trying to get a better idea about the movements of the narwals in and around Scoresby Sund.
There is not a lot known about these archaic looking animals and, as we found out the next morning ashore, they need to know more about it before they can start prospecting for oil off the coast of East Greenland. I guess it will be a mixed blessing for the Inuits if they find some, especially here in ITQ where the locals still very much depend on hunting for food.
There will be money coming in, but how much of their local and traditional ways will they have to sacrifice for it? Enough with the politics.
Most of our crew went off ashore to mingle with the holiday makers and have a look around. At the same time, we ended up with a small Inuit invasion! It started off with two little boys in an inflatable with paddles, that came rowing over to the boat and asked if they could have a look. Soon after, we had twelve to fifteen people on board, 'Oh'-ing and 'Ah'-ing about all the
wondrous things we had on board.
The little boy asked to use the toilet and when he was done, came to catch Boogie and without speaking English, managed to ask Boogie to explain to him how to flush his 'business' even including cleaning up behind himself. The younger girls visiting wanted to go as well: they hadn't had a sit down toilet since they had arrived in the camp here almost two weeks ago.
It was touching to see how happy they all were with the apples offered. But as I saw some eyes diverting behind me towards the browning bananas, decided to offer them those as well: as if I was distributing gold! 'Me, me, me!!!'.
Ended up getting all the bananas out and having some very happy kids around.
They were all keen to have their photos taken, and one family (father, mother, young boy and teenage girl with very fancy sunglasses) asked if we could take some with their camera as well. One of the older guys turned out to be the local hunting police, keeping an eye on the local quota for hunting, but also making sure that if a muskox was shot it was actually killed and not just injured and running off. Very interesting guy to talk to and luckily enough he spoke reasonable English, as did most of the older kids and parents.
They were all very friendly and also curious to know where we were from, where we were going, what everything on board was and very impressed with all the sleeping arrangements.
All in all a great experience.
In the morning Boogie, Luke and I had a quick jump ashore, seeing what it was all about. They had shot a muskox a few days before and were sawing off the horns of the skull, we saw 2 hunted seals on the beach (one skinned, the other waiting to be - a perfect before and after) and lots of fishing gear. It was still early though and most of our newfound friends from last night
were still in their tents.
And we had places to go, so off to Polar to pick up our anchor and head East again.
