After the gales of yesterday we packed in much calmer conditions, with the aim of getting as far as the small village of Niaqornat, as we could do with a gas canister or two. The strong tail wind had become a reasonably strong tidal flow against us for most of the day.
Although it was a mainly overcast sky we caught some glimpses of dramatic mountain scenery to our left and some beautiful bergs to our right, There was always something to distract us as we pushed against the tide for several hours.
Eventually late afternoon we rounded the headland and the village of Niaqornat came into view. With only 58 inhabitants in 2010, it could hardly be described as a thriving metropolis. On landing one of the local residents, out walking his young daughter wandered over for a chat. A very humbling experience as English was clearly at least his third language. The shop was clearly shut but a quick call from our new friend and the shop manager wandered down to open up, that's what I call service. He even had the courtesy to point out all of the items which were on special offer, so we left with significant quantities of chocolate biscuits.
Heading west, initially under large cliffs followed by a low lying delta we eventually landed on a black sand beach before erecting the tents on a large glacial feature. As would be expected close to such a large delta the insects were fairly demanding and so for the first night on the trip we had to put up the tipi, to provide some respite.
With another 21 nautical miles under our belt we were in a excellent position for rounding the western end of the peninsula, an area which everybody we had spoken to had warned us about, strong winds, rough water etc. We hoped that the following day these warnings would be proved wrong.
There was a beautiful quality to the light, which enhanced the icebergs. There was very little small ice but plenty of larger bergs.
Niaqornat, the most westerly village on the peninsula. We just hoped that the shop was open.
All the facilities of a modern village. A shop (red building) and racks for drying polar bear skins!
The contrast between the new and the old. Nicky using the superb phone signal to check on the family whilst behind 2 polar bears which were shot during the spring are stretched over the frames. We just hoped that we were not going to encounter any of the live variety.
We decided that this huge feature was a kame terrace, a fluvio-glacial feature. We were really excited with our background in geography. Its at times like this that you realize why Geography is the most important subject on the curriculum. We were actually camped on the feature but closer to the sea.
As we secured the kayaks for the evening the fog descended. A indicator for what lay ahead tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment