Sunday 8th September 2019 – MY PHANTOM READER …

… is back again today (having had a day off yesterday) and at the time of writing has read just over 100 pages – that is, 1500 blog entries.

My hat goes off to you, sir or madam. That shows perseverence and determination that not even I, the author, possess. I wish that you would introduce yourself.

I was right about last night. 04:30 and the party was still going on. They had come in from the pool and were continuing in the basement, keeping us all awake. I managed to drift off into a very intermittent sleep but it wasn’t until the last body crashed out round about 08:00 that I finally went into a deep sleep.

In the meantime, for some reason that I don’t understand, I had been urging myself to rise up from my bed and take photos of the breaking dawn. It was certainly a persistent impulse and I’ve no idea what was going on there.

The noise started up again at about 10:00 as Amber’s friends made ready to leave. And once they had gone, I felt it safe to venture out into the open.

Everyone was getting ready to leave and we hopped into various vehicles and headed for the US border.

Of course, I had already had a valid temporary visa but it had been withdrawn when I left for Greenland, so I had to go through the process yet again. And as regular readers of this rubbish might recall, it was shift change time, all of the electrical equipment was down and they couldn’t find the key for the cash desk All in all, it took us well over 30 minutes for me to be processed.

The border guard gave me a lecture about “surrendering the card unnecessarily” but I didn’t want to prolong the matter by telling him about Greenland otherwise we would still be there now. Instead I replied rather meekly “yes, thanks, I’ll remember” and he let me go.

But it’s a shame when one is on the receiving end of a lecture for having obeyed quite rigorously the letter of the law.

And to my amazement, I noticed that my temporary visa is dated
2nd September 2019, not 8th September as it ought to be.

At the Oriental Pearl in Presque Ile everyone else was straining at the leash to get at the buffet and were quite relieved when we finally arrived. There’s very little on the buffet that I can eat so they made me steamed veg and boiled rice.

I picked up the bill at the end – it’s the least that I can do for being housed so hospitably and then we all went to Mardens for a browse, where I found some gelatine-free licorice.

Darren and the three younger girls went home afterwards but Zoe, Rachel and I went for a coffee. Then we attacked Walmart and then down to Mars Hill for the IGA supermarket, where the vegan ice cream and sorbet were sold out.

Crossing back into Canada was rather painless (I had half-expected the phantom reader to have found enough in what he or she has read already in the blog to have me incarcerated) and we came back. In the IGA I’d found some almond milk with real banana so I gave it a try. And delicious it was too.

Now it’s bed time. I have an early start. Due to various considerations it looks as if I’ve drawn the short straw and am doing the school run tomorrow. I need to be on form.

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Saturday 7th September 2019 – I HAVE THROWN AWAY …

… a whole lifetime today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I travel around the world in some kind of peripatetic idyll, all of my possessions either on my back or in one of my trucks (Caliburn in Europe, Strider in North America).

But today, up at the mill, I heaved almost all of my North American possessions into a skip (dumpster to you North Americans) and put an end to my nomadic lifestyle.

It’s simply that I can’t do it any more and it’s no point pretending that I can continue. Watching the blood count slowly decline over the last two years down to the critical level (which it must surely have reached by now seeing as I haven’t had it checked for almost 3 months) and knowing that my days are numbered, it’s just useless weight that I’m dragging around with me.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be up in Montreal and I’ll be emptying out my storage locker. The only thing that I’ll be salvaging from there will be the amplifier and speaker for the bass and the remainder will be joining the rest of the travelling gear in that great camp site in the sky.

That’ll be the first time in Montreal this year. It’s not like me, is it?

But I’ll tell you something. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my mentioning the rather lively back end of Strider, how we travelled mainly sideways down a variety of gravel roads in Labrador. “Lively” back in those days had absolutely nothing on “lively” today, with almost nothing on the pick-up bed.

If I ever make it back to Labrador, we shall certainly be living in interesting times.

Having crowed about my really good nights just recently, it’s almost inevitable that they should catch up on me sooner or later.

And so it was last night.

For a start, we were still awake, the bass guitar and me, at well past midnight as I was picking away at various bass lines, unable to sleep. One thing about life on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour is that it has pumped music back into my soul.

But when I finally did manage to drop off, the dictaphone tell its own story. There’s a record on average about every 20 minutes over a three-hour period, and what I do remember from the various nocturnal rambles is that every single one of them concerned Castor pursuing me around the ship.

Not that I’m complaining of course. Usually, anyone pursuing me anywhere would be almost certainly brandishing the kind of offensive weapon that would paralyse a polar bear, so it makes a nice change to be pursued by pleasant company. What I don’t understand is why I thought it necessary to run away. I’m definitely losing my grip.

Once all of that was over I was up and about, only to find that we had run out of bread for breakfast. With Zoe not coming back last night, we hadn’t been to the shops had we?

Instead Rachel and I went straight up to the garage and made coffee, and slowly woke up.

Then it was that I attacked the emptying of Strider and that took me almost up to lunchtime. But lunchtime was late – there was a queue of trucks needing attention in the workshop and we couldn’t move one out until almost 12:45.

Zoe, who had by now put in an appearance, and I shot back to the house, picked up all of her belongings and, now that Strider was almost empty, whipped them down to her new house. And I’m glad that we had emptied Strider because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong and there wasn’t much room inside the truck.

Atlantic Superstore was next for a week or two’s load of vegan food so that I can eat properly, and also due to the fact that we are having another vegan messing with us for a while.

There’s a hurricane threatening here and out in the sticks a back-up generator is necessary. But believe it or not, in a household with 6 cars, three trucks, two heavy trucks and assorted 4-wheelers, snowmobiles, golf carts and Amber’s motor scooter, there wasn’t a drop of spare fuel.

Consequently Hannah had thrown a pile of empty fuel cans into the back of Strider and I came back from Irvings at Woodstock with 157.6 litres of petrol in the back of Strider. The rear end of Strider wasn’t bouncing around at all then!

Next stop was back at the garage. Darren had a rear wheel bearing, driveshaft oil seal, brake disk and caliper to change on the rear of a Chevrolet D5500 heavy truck – the one that I drove down to New Hampshire a couple of years ago to take that racing engine for repair.

It’s not difficult task but it’s heavy, dirty and complex, and four hands are always better than two working down a cramped inspection pit.

The task involved a judicious amount of heat and with an oxy-acetylene welding torch it brought back many happy memories. The last time that I did any welding on a car was the old Passat back in 1997 but that was with the mig-welder. With oxy-acetylene, the last time that I did any welding was stitching Nerina’s Ford Fiasco back together back in something like 1991. When I had my taxi company I was probably welding up one car or other almost every day.

We’d finished by about 18:00 and staggered off back home.

And I couldn’t resist a smile. Driving 20 miles with 157 litres of petrol floating around in the back of the truck and having to invent a makeshift stopper for one of the cans – getting out the oxy-acetylene welding bottles – crawling around an inspection pit in a garage taking driveshafts out of lorries and showering myself in Hypoid 90 – I thought that I had left all of that behind me more than 30 years ago.

You can take the boy out of Crewe right enough, but you can’t ever take Crewe out of the boy.

But then that’s why I like New Brunswick. It’s about 50 years behind the times and suits me perfectly.

Rachel came to awaken me later. It seems that I had crashed out for a while (hardly a surprise) and it was now tea-time. A chick pea curry which was delicious, and then we were descended upon by hordes of people. Amber is having a party and despite the rain and the winds, there are dozens of teenagers all attired in a variety of swimwear and heading for the hot tub outside.

I’ve locked myself in my room with the bass guitar and I am refusing to come out until the coast is clear. It’s a good job that it’s Sunday tomorrow and a lie-in is on the cards. I think that I’m going to need it.

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Friday 6th September 2019 – HATS OFF …

… to whoever has had the patience (or maybe it’s the motivation LOL) to sit and read their way through 29 pages of my website followed by no less than 55 pages of my blog.

I know that what I write is right riveting stuff but with 15 blog entries on a page, that’s 825 days’ worth of entries – not far short of 2.5 years and that calls for a lot of persistence and determination.

Either someone has nothing better to do with his or her time, or it’s someone else collecting evidence for my incarceration LOL. But just remember the Hispano-Roman rhetorican Quintilian who once famously said (with paraphrased lines much-later quoted by people such as Richelieu and Laubardemont) something along the lines of “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him”.

But no matter what – I admire your persistence. Hats off to you.

Last night was another excellent sleep and I was off on a voyage or two during the night. High time I started attacking the dictaphone notes so that I can see where I’ve been.

Slept right through the alarms yet again and finally managed to crawl out of my stinking pit at about 10:30.

It took a while to come round but when I did, I made a start on going through the suitcase.

But, as usual, I was sidetracked. Since I had awoken, I had had a couple of lines of a poem going around in my head – something that I must have had going on during the night on a voyage somewhere.

These things usually escape me but for some reason or other, seeing as it was something rather emotional that related to something intense that happened on one of my voyages, I determined to write it down before I forgot.

By the time that I had finished, I’d ended up with a poem of seven verses and I’m working on an eighth) and a chorus, and by the time I’d read through it a few times I had a beat and a rhythm going on in my head.

There are a couple of 6-string guitars around here but could I find them? Could I ‘eck as, so I turned to the piano. The piano is not my forte so I dashed outside to Strider and rescued the perishing bass.

Two years since it’s been out and about and much to my surprise it was still in tune (these mobile phone apps are quite good) so I picked out a bass line, a rhythm and a lead break.

It needs more work of course, but I’m impressed about how it worked out.

By now Amber was back from school so we had a chat. And it looks as if I’m going to resume my duties as a driving monitor at some point. She’s spent her summer shop wages on a car – a VW Jetta diesel – and now she needs to put the hours in. She shouldn’t have any trouble though – she’s been throwing around a 3,500hp tractor for the last two years so a Jetta should be child’s play.

And I’m still wondering who it was who took Strider down to the garage that day just over two years ago when it needed the gearbox linkage adjusting. Amber was the only one here but she was only days past her 14th birthday. She wouldn’t have done it.

Rachel came in and went out again, then Hannah came in later. We exchanged a few words and then she and Amber went off to do girly things down in Woodstock.

I waited for Zoe but she never turned up, so I went to make myself some beans on toast – only for the tin opener to hold onto the lid and drop the can and all of the beans all over the floor. Last tin of beans too.

It’s not my day, is it?

Darren and I had a chat about trucks and his plan for the new tractor-pulling season and then I went off to my room.

There’s a lot to do tomorrow. I’ve made a conscious decision that I’m not ever going out roughing it in Strider (or anything else) again so I’m going to throw away all of my gear – stuff that I won’t need any longer.

There’s a skip at the mill right now so I’m going to take full advantage of it.

So I need to gird up my loins and gather my strength.

And if my phantom follower is still out there, then good night to you, sir! Identify yourself and I’ll buy you a beer.

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Thursday 5th September 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the bed in here.

It took me a while to settle myself down but once I’d gone, I’d gone for good and I had the best sleep that I have had for at least two weeks.

Off on a few voyages too, for the first time for a week, and I’ll tell you all about them once I’ve organised the dictaphone.

During one of my voyages, I heard one of the participants call my name, so I sat up bolt-upright. I’ve not had a moment like that for several years and when I did it was usually a plea for help or for me to get in touch.

For a fact, I know that Castor was in one of my voyages, and so, when I heard the call, I wondered if it was she. But who knows, and this is not the moment for me to find out, I reckon, even if, to paraphrase the words of Adolphus Greely whose expedition came to grief on Cape Sabine, “I know of no law, human or divine, that was broken …”.

If Castor wants to get in touch with me then she can. She has the means or if not, she can find them. But it’s not the moment for me to be taking any initiative.

For once I slept right through the alarms and it was 10:30, when the telephone rang, that I awoke. I wasn’t quick enough to answer the telephone though.

Instead I carried on with a few tasks that needed attention – I still wasn’t in work mode – then round about 14:30 went for a shower and a clean-up.

Back in bed afterwards until Hannah came home and we had one of our lengthy chats. I’m glad to see her doing so well after her spell at University.

She’s been offered a chance to study for her CPA but she’s not sure. I was explaining to her the benefits, particularly if someone else is paying for the course.

Darren came back later and we had a chat while Amber made tea. And even though it’s only 21:45 I’m off to bed.

I have a lot of sleep to catch up on.

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Wednesday 4th September 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

Just about to board my ‘plane in Calgary when … “Blimey – where’s my jacket?”.

And I know exactly where it is. Hanging up on a hook behind the door in the hotel of course.

It seems that I am destined to travel the world leaving a trail of my possessions scattered behind me as some kind of trail marker for wherever I have been. For example, my geological notes are festooning a beach on Devon Island and my lens cap is somewhere in Cambridge Bay.

And now the coat is in Calgary.

But I blame the stress myself. I had yet another bad night last night with very little sleep and it’s a good job that I was awake because the promised alarm call never came. I had to scamper down the stairs at 04:30 where the shuttle bus was already waiting.

Hardly surprising that something was left behind.

Having checked in, I went for breakfast at Tim Hortons. A couple of bagels, coffee and juice. The first Tim Hortons visit this year by the way.

Security was pretty painless and I had something of a wait afterwards for the plane.

But once on the plane I had something of a surprise – something that seems to be happening more and more these days.

A couple with three little kids were sitting behind me and I heard them talking German. So when I got up to go for a ride on the porcelain horse I said something back in German.
“Do you speak German then?” he asked.
“Only a little’ I replied. “But I’m from Europe anyway”
“We live in Europe too – in Munich”
“Whereabouts?”
He told me a name that I didn’t recognise
“I visit Munich quite often. I have friends in Eching”
“Ahhh – that’s where IKEA is. Are you off back to Europe now? We are, later today”
“No, I’m off to New Brunswick. I have family and friends there”.
“Ohh! Whereabouts? I was raised in New Brunswick”
“Some small settlement north of a place called Woodstock”
“Woodstock? That’s where I actually lived!”

This world is getting far too small for my liking.

At Toronto I did something that I should have done years ago and rekindled my SKYPE account, so I can make calls from my phone at wi-fi points. I rang the hotel and they had indeed found my jacket. I told them to hang onto it until I could work out how to pick it up.

I had a very pleasant companion accompanying me to Fredericton, and once there, Zoe came to pick me up.

We had a nice drive back through the rainstorm and tried three restaurants before we found one that was interested in serving us. One had closed down abd the other one, despite advertising as open until 21:00 had locked its doors even though the staff was inside looking out.

We went to Murray’s instead. I had home fires with vegetables followed by toast and jam. Quite a change from the cooking on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

Rachel and I had a very lengthy chat here and now I’ve retired to bed. I know that this bed is comfortable so I’m hoping at last to have a really good sleep. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. Anyone who wants me will have to come and get me.

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Tuesday 3rd September 2019 – I HAD …

… another sleepless night last night. Too much turmoil going on around my head, I reckon, as there has been over the last week or so.

The artist Samuel Gurney Cresswell, who accompanied McClure on an expedition to the Arctic once remarked that a voyage up there “ought to make anyone a wiser and better man”. But it didn’t do that for me, did it?

Still, you live and learn.

So this morning I was up and about early, having been awake for hours. I had my medication, much of which fell down behind the TV cabinet, and then went for breakfast.

Back up here I had a shower and then vegetated for a while before hitting the streets.

One of the streets near here is a shopping thoroughfare so I went to buy food for lunch and a bit of an explore. I eventually found a couple of thrift shops and had a browse but no CDs or books of interest.

No guitars either, and nether were there ukeleles so I couldn’t have a strum. I’ll have to deal with that in due course.

After lunch I attacked all of the e-mails that had arrived while I was out of contact. Piles of them, there were, and it took an age to go through them and the ones that I had saved from the previous trips. Some housekeeping too was in order.

When I was at the shops I bought a huge carton of almond milk so instead of any tea tonight I waded my way through that.

But here we go again. I had a raging thirst for the last few days, the shakes yesterday at the airport and now I seem to be off my food. It seems that I’m heading for another bout of illness (I recognise the signs now) which is no surprise seeing as I have missed 2 sessions of blood transfusions and I have a third to miss as well.

Not that I object though. I wouldn’t have missed this adventure for the world and I’m so pleased to have done it. There might have been a few problems but some of us don’t have problems, we have solutions.

Now I really am tired so seeing as I have a ridiculously early start in the morning it’s high time that I tried my best to sleep.

See you in the morning.

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Monday 2nd September 2019 – PHEW!!!

Made it! And I shan’t trouble you with the old joke about the gents’ public lavatory either.

A very eventful 17 or 18 days but we saved the most eventful of the events for this lunchtime.

Right now though, having just arrived in Calgary, I’m off to bed. For one reason about which I will explain anon when I’m in better shape to catch up with things, I’ll tell you all about it.

In the meantime I’m going to pick up from here and deal with the arrears “as and when”.

I’ve had an exciting time, but excitement in all directions too.

And if anyone asks me if the negative issues worth the pain, the answer is that they most certainly were because despite their ultimate negativity, the events leading thereupto were events that I would not have missed for the world. I had the time of my life (time that I never had as a kid) in pleasant, interesting and exciting company and in the morning I shall remember the words of Kris Kristofferson, who wrote
“I’ll give all my tomorrows for a single yesterday”.

Even if it has made me about as welcome as a rattlesnake in a lucky dip on any future Adventure Canada sailings.

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Wednesday 28th August 2019 – WE HAD A …

… medical emergency today.

Not me, I hasten to add, but when they announced “Eric” a lot of people almost cheered until they realised that it was “the other one”.

With not finishing our concert until 00:25 or so, and having to write up my blog afterwards, I felt like death this morning. But I hauled myself out of my stinking pit before the third alarm and was up on deck taking photos – not that there was much to take because the weather was totally and miserably awful.

While we were at breakfast someone spotted a pod of beluga swimming around in Flexure Bay, so we went up on deck. And despite the rain, we stayed there for an hour or so taking photos. I counted in one of my photos about 100, which would seem to indicate a pod of about 300 and that is phenomenal. I only wish that my photos would do them justice.

Nevertheless, despite the rainstorm that was going on, we decided to launch the zodiacs and go for a cruise around. We need to keep our distance from them of course but we can go closer in a zodiac than a ship.

So we were about half of us in the water when we were called back to The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. A passenger, taken ill during the night, needed uegent medical attention and the nearest attention was 9 hours sailing away, all the way back up Peel Sound to Resolute.

We were overflown by a 4-engined aeroplane which was checking our condition and the ice in the vicinity, and then eventually after we had travelled almost all of the route a coastguard vessel came to meet us. Twice, in fact, for after they had disembarked the patient they realised that he had left his passport behind.

Once that was accomplished we set sail again, up Peel Sound and all the way back the way we had come.

During the day we had been entertained. Lots or workshops organised and I went to the one on naval charts and the one on the Inuktitut language, but for some reason that I can’t explain (well, actually I can but it’s a long story and regular readers of this rubbish will recall it anyway) my heart isn’t in it at all.

Tea was with LIndi, Danielle and Ashley, the three most beautiful and charming girls on board and wasn’t I the lucky one?

And then I went back upstairs to watch the sunset (which was beautiful), to photograph a rainbow, and to learn to play “Gloria’s Eyes” on the ukelele – and much to my surprise it woks quite well.

But it can’t make up for the disappointment of not being able to sail down Prince Regent Inlet and Bellot Strait. I’m dismayed about that.

But still …

A little walk around the deck now before an early bed. It’s a very early start tomorrow as we are meeting an icebreaker.

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I WANT TO …

… tell you all a little story. And it’s really down to the insistence of one of the regular readers of this rubbish.

It’s something that I wrote to myself late one night about a week or so before my final voyage across the Atlantic Ocean came to an end.
—-

Wind the clock back to 1969/70 when I was studying Latin … “well, puer amat mensam” – ed … at Grammar School and having to translate – either from the English to the Latin or vice versa (and if there’s any vice involved, you can bet your life that I’m in there somewhere!) – a Roman myth or legend.

For reasons that I no longer remember, I chose the story of Castor and Pollux, and I can recall the story quite clearly even to this day.

Leaving aside all other kinds of myths and legends concerning Castor and Pollux that people might think are quite apposite, and other names by which they might have been known, which may be even more apposite to some, I’m referring to the fact that one of them (Castor) was a mortal being and his twin Pollux was the creation of the Gods, fathered by Zeus who having disguised himself as a swan, came down to earth and seduced Leda, wife of Tyndareus King of the Spartans and who were the mortal parents of Castor.

Therefore Castor and Pollux were in fact half-brothers.

Cutting a long story short … “for which we are all grateful” – ed … and missing out quite a few very relevant thoughts, including the phenomenon of St Elmo’s Fire (canwyll yr ysbryd or “candles of the spirit” as it is known in Welsh) and which has more of a bearing on this story than anyone might imagine, Castor the mortal died, and Pollux, the immortal, was heart-broken.

Pollux pleaded with the Gods and eventually Zeus changed things around so that half of the immortality of Pollux was given to Castor.

This meant that they took it in turns to be immortal, so that whoever was the mortal on any particular day was in Hades and whoever was immortal on that day was on Mount Olympus, and they changed over on a regular basis.

To whichever bank of the River Styx Charon the boatman had taken you, whether to Hades or Mount Olympus, you would only ever see the one and not the other until they alternated. For the casual observer, whether you were in Hell or in the Paradise of the Gods, it was really exactly the same situation and the same circumstance as in the other place but on different days depending upon who was the immortal God and who was the mortal being on that particular day.

A schizophrenic’s delight or dilemma, you might say. And I should know all about that of course.

So there are things going on right now that I don’t quite understand. And maybe I ought to understand them, I dunno. But right now I have a couple of quotes going round in my head, and seeing as we are on board a ship in difficult seas a nautical metaphor is appropriate. It’s an exchange between Peter Ustinov and Mia Farrow in Agatha Christie’s “Death On The Nile”
Ustinov – “You are embarking on a hazardous journey in troubled waters. You face who knows what currents of misfortune”.
Farrow – “One must follow one’s star wherever it leads, even unto hell itself”.
Such is the price of loneliness, boredom, inaction and, most importantly, curiosity.

—-
I hope that you enjoyed that little story.

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Tuesday 27th August 2019 – I HAVE SPENT …

… a very pleasant day in the company of those two two very pleasant young girls whom I have mentioned previously. I’m not sure quite why, but I seem to be Flavour Of The Month right now – a situation to which I’m not accustomed at all

When we saw the polar bear the other day the younger one of the two who was wandering around the deck on her own wasn’t able to pick it up with her camera very well To help her out, I put her memory card into my camera and let her take a few photos using the big zoom lens. No kid should ever go around being disappointed if there’s someone around who can lend a hand.

Unfortunately I had my camera set on RAW data rather than *.jpg so her camera couldn’t see it, as I came to realise afterwards. But I was working with the laptop in my little corner in the upper lounge today when they both came past, so I grabbed her memory card, edited the photos for her, converted it into *.jpg format and, for good measure, slipped her a photo of my walrus from yesterday as a little present.

We ended up having quite a chat, that started at about 15:00 this afternoon and went on until … errr … 00:30. And I’ll tell you something for nothing – and that is that they are far more intelligent and interesting and have much more to say for themselves than any of the adults on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

And that, unfortunately, is not saying very much either. To tell the truth, this is a pretty miserable lot of passengers on board the ship for this section of the voyage. There’s not even one of them with whom I’d choose to spend any of my spare time, and I’m pretty certain judging by the number of times that I’ve sat at a table and taken my meals all alone that the feeling is pretty much mutual.

Not that it bothers me at all though. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m much happier with my own company and It seems as if I’m condemned to prowl the deck of the ship totally on my own until all kinds of late hours until I fall overboard, rather like Joshua Slocum, which is par for the course these days.

Mind you, I don’t know how I do it because I had another dreadful night. Wide awake at 01:00 and then not going back to sleep at all. And I was feeling dreadful too – fearing a recurrence of my trouble of the other week.

I know what caused it though. Basically, I was in a totally foul mood and it was eating me up all yesterday evening.

Yesterday or the day before, I’d mentioned that we have someone from the Archaeological Service of Canada Parks on board and as a result things are being run “by the book” on board, to the total exclusion of everything else.

Consequently, even though I’ve travelled for 40 days and spent not far short of $40,000 over two years to travel to a certain point and to take a certain photograph, it’s been decided that I won’t be permitted to take it.

I was furious (to say the least) about the idea of missing out on the photo that I really wanted to take, and it was preying on my mind. But being wide-awake enabled me to have a good think and it gave me the opportunity to come up with a solution.

And so at breakfast I buttonholed Rachel the Archaeologist and bent her ear somewhat (poor girl), telling her of my utter dismay and disappointment. She replied that she would “take my concerns on board”.

It was snowing slightly outside and freezing cold, as you might expect up here in the High Arctic, but we all warmed ourselves up in our really warm expedition clothing and hit the zodiacs. 10 minutes later we were on Beechey Island. at last, after all of these years.

We visited the graves of the three sailors who died at the start of the Franklin expedition and I took the photos that I wanted. Permission had been obtained (although, I suspect, unofficially, and I thought it best not to make further enquiries). We then walked on through the rain and the howling wind past a passing gyrfalcon down to Northumberland House (or the remains thereof) built by William Pullen’s expedition to relieve Franklin should he still be alive (which he wasn’t)

The whole place is covered in old tin cans, barrel staves and barrel hoops from Franklin’s and the relief expeditions in the 1840s and 50s and that all adds to the mystery of the place. But at long last I have made it there and that was what I’ve come all this way to do.

But one thing that I couldn’t do was to deal with yet more of this red tape. There’s a shipwreck – the yacht Mary – dating from the 1850s on the island, and known since at least 1854. I was hoping to be able to visit that but because it didn’t form part of the permit that the company had obtained (apparently no-one thought that it would be of much interest to anyone) it had been taped off and an “unofficial excursion’ was out of the question with this official loitering around.

So instead, I cursed my bad luck.

The zodiac ride back was wild, totally wild. You’d pay good money for that in an adventure park. We were all soaked to the skin and frozen to the marrow, so when we returned I had a hot shower to warm myself up.

After lunch I was on deck for a while and then fell in with the girls. They are cousins apparently, both mad on music and keen players of the ukelele. So I’ve been having private ukelele lessons all evening.

There was a concert in fancy dress this evening. Strawberry Moose dressed up for it and won a prize.

Later on in the evening while I was chatting to the girls and learning to play the ukelele, two boys joined in. One of them was no mean guitarist and the other could sing really well and so we had a jam session until long after midnight, all five of us.

And as a result, a cunning plan is developing. But more of this anon. I’m off to bed.

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Monday 26th August 2019 – I DID MY FIRST …

… presentation today on an Adventure Canada ship and I was really pleased.

The subject of maps came up in the discussion and in particular Croker Bay where we were. it’s a huge, long fjord that branches off into two at the head. And so the question was raised. Why isn’t it shown on old maps?

The answer to that is simple.

The fact is that when this area was first surveyed in the mid 19th Century there was a glacier down it, as my Admiralty Charts tell me, and for that reason it was never possible to sail into it and explore it.

But when you see the fjord today, how long, wide and deep it is, it’s astonishing how much ice has actually melted away. Anyone who denies the existence of climate change needs to come here and have a look for themselves.

Last night I had a horrible night. Although I went asleep quite early on, I was awoken by I don’t know what at about 01:30 and that was my lot for the night.

Despite that, I still managed to beat the third alarm and was soon up on deck in the fog and mist. But a little later, we were in luck. We saw a polar bear asleep on a rock just on shore, right by where we were planning to land for Dundas Harbour. It was as if he was waiting for us.

It put the kybosh on the landing of course, but at least we had a good hour’s entertainment before he loped off to the other side, to our alternative landing point. So after a while waiting for him to move off, which he didn’t of course, we found another landing site in the vicinity. But not before a family of seals came along to join in the fun.

We had a cruise in the zodiacs around the bay so that we could at least look at the old Inuit settlement at Morin Point and the mast at Inglefield Hill, and then sailed across the strait to shore.

This new landing place is nothing like as historic or as interesting, but beautiful nevertheless. Probably one of the most beautiful places that I have ever visited. I surprised myself by climbing almost all the way to the top, which was quite an effort. Coming down alongside the waterfall was just as exciting. No-one was more pleased than me to have made it up there.

And the weather was perfect too. When I was here last year we were caught in a blizzaed.

After lunch we went for a cruise in Croker Bay (now that we can these days of course) and saw another polar bear, some walrus, more seals and some arctic geese. We certainly had our money’s worth this afternoon.

Tea was a disaster though yet again. Another one that took hours to come. And then they forgot my dessert. All in all I was waiting for two hours for my meal. I’ve no idea what was going on in the kitchen tonight.

This evening I helped the two young girls on board do a jigsaw and then came down here. Tons of photos to edit right now after today’s effotrts but even though we gain an hour tonight, after last night’s shenanigans I’m too tired to do anything.

So I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.

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Sunday 25th August 2019 – WE HAD OUR …

… first engagement with the ukelele today. During the evening’s recap different groups had to give a discussion about what they had learnt the other day, so we gave a rousing performance of “You Are My Sunshine”.

Unfortunately no-one passed around the hat, but then again that wasn’t a surprise because we are a long way from meriting it, but the Icey Arm 6 are on the road!

This was another night where I didn’t sleep as well as I would have liked, but then no-one is complaining because we had the “everyone up on the starboard bow” call. Sure enough, there on the bank at the side of Buchan Gulf was Mummy Polar Bear with baby. Too far away to be spectacular but we could see them quite clearly and take photographs.

The downside of all of this is that the bear and her cub were wandering about right where our landing site was to be in Icey Arm. She was there first so we had to leave and look for someone else. My suggestion that we make a list of passengers without whom this cruise would operate more smoothly and send them ashore on the first zodiac as bait was met with disdain

While we were turning round to look for another site I checked my photos. And to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I resolved to speak to the photography guy but we were interrupted by the most magnificent set of cliffs that you could ever wish to see. Called “Executioner’s Cliffs”, they were over 1000 feet high and vertical. Marc the geologist and I spent a very happy hour or so examining the rocks and we even identified a volcanic cone.

That session too was interrupted. A pod of narwhals decided to join in the fun and while we couldn’t see their tusks we could see them cavorting about – after a fashion because once more I wasn’t up to the task with the photos.

After lunch, I button-holed the photographer. We adjusted one or two settings on the camera to improve the quality of the colour of the photo, but there wasn’t much that we could do about the lack of sharpness. Shaking about happens to everyone of a certain age and it’s nothing to do with the camera either.

He suggested that I ramp up the ISO to about 6400 – to let in plenty of light. Then, go for the widest aperture possible when taking telephoto shots – and then go for speed on the shutter. My camera had a capability of 1/8000 and that is what I should be aiming for, if you excuse the pun.

So I tried it, and for the first time in an age I managed to take a really good photo of a bird in flight from a distance. Some of the images are still not as good as I would like, but a rolling ship is not a very good photography platform. I can’t wait to get onto dry land and give it a go.

But one thing that I suppose that I ought to mention is that it’s not a case that the quality of my work is deteriorating. Far from it. it’s that being around other people, many of whom are professional photographers, I’m realising that my work has been rubbish all along and I’ve never felt the urge to work on my technique and improve it.

This evening at the recap we had our performance, and I’ve taken a ukelele to bed with me. I’m determined to have a good crack at it over the next week.

But not tonight. I’m off to bed. It’s a busy day tomorrow as we are heading to Dundas Harbour and the abandoned RCMP post there. But the bad news is that Rachel the Archaeologist tells us that we have a representative of the Canadian Parks Archaeological Service on board the vessel so everything is being done “by the book’.

No informality with the rules and that’s going to cramp my style an awful lot.

And we didn’t step ashore today at all.

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Saturday 24th August 2019 – TODAY I HAVE BEEN …

… learning to play the ukelele. And furthermore, I now know four chords (C, G, F and Am) and can play two songs. And if Status Quo can tour the world for 50 years with just 3 chords, I can do far better than that.

Last night I was wide awake again just before 04:00 and it took an age to go back to sleep again. Mind you, I comfortably beat the third alarm out of bed.

As I intimated yesterday, all events are cancelled for today. There had been talk of going into a couple of fjords in order to spot wildlife and the like, but there’s a howling gale raging on Baffin Island right now and while it’s not enough to cause us many problems out here 25 kilometres offshore, it could be devastating in a narrow and uncharted fjord. We are going to stand to offshore until it all subsides and head on north as soon as it’s safe to do so.

Consequently we had a series of on-board workshops. This morning I attended the photo-editing workshop during which I came to the conclusion that not only is my technique rubbish but the program that I use is even worse, and both must be improved when (ever) I return home, if not sooner.

After lunch we had a lecture on polar bears, during which I fell asleep and then made a fool of myself by asking a question that had been covered during the time that I was away with the fairies, and then the ukelele session that I mentioned just now.

I also took advantage of the computer technician who has now managed to stop (but not remove) the Walmart splash screen that has been annoying me, and I also went to see the expedition leader about a project that I have in mind.

Tea was with the photographer and I had a curry that had been specially made for me by the chef. Later, I finished (hooray) editing the photos and now I’m up-to-date for the month of August. But they are all going to have to be done again as I’m far from satisfied with the output.

But not tonight though. I’m off for an early night. Everything starts back up tomorrow if the storm subsides.

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Friday 23rd August 2019 – I’VE BEEN FOR A RIDE …

… in a police car today.

No surprise there, of course, as many of my friends will suggest. In fact I should have been a policeman given the number of times that I have had to help them with their enquiries.

Having adjusted the clocks by two hours over the last couple of days, it will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that I was wide-awake at 04:15 this morning. I did manage to go off back to sleep at one point, only to be rudely awakened by the alarm at 06:00.

With the medication and breakfast, this was followed by a lesson in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit people. It’s not easy because isolation and geographical displacement has caused there to be several distinct dialects and of course we have Inuit on board who come from four different regions. But we did our best.

Canadian Immigration people came on board to check our passports. I was shocked, if not horrified, to learn that two immigration officers had been flown out here from Ottawa on a specially-chartered plane simply to check our passports and then fly back. The cost – no less than $50,000 – is charged to the company transporting us and, eventually of course, to us.

Why they couldn’t have come on a scheduled flight, or why the Immigration Service couldn’t simply have chartered a Canadian Air Force plane, totally escapes me. It sounds something like a “make-work” scheme to me, arranged to screw some money out of a captive audience.

Having done that, we could board the zodiacs to take us to the shore. And to our surprise, there was a guy sitting on a beach chair at the landing point checking us off as we stepped ashore.

We’re finally in Canada after all of our exertions, at the settlement of Qikiqtarjuaq, spelt “Kekertukdjuak” on my Admiralty chart of March 1908 and known to generations of Arctic explorers as Broughton island, here just offshore from Baffin Island.

Strawberry Moose and I went for a long walk around the place to see what we could see, eschewing the touristy attractions. There’s a viewpoint up in the hills overlooking the straits so we went there to see the view and present His Nibs with a few photo opportunities.

On the way back I encountered a father teaching his son, aged about four, how to use a sling properly in order to bring down a flying bird when they go out hunting in the future. Naturally, I stayed around to watch and to learn and also to have a good chat. Modern materials certainly, but I was very impressed with the fact that ancient tribal knowledge is being passed on. Father told me too about the effects of climate change on his village and how the snowfall has dramatically reduced and temperatures dramatically increased.

Walking around the edge of the harbour I fell in with Dennis, our expedition photographer. We were having a good chat when a copper pulled up.
“Are you photographers?” he asked.
When we answered in the affirmative he invited us into his vehicle. He was off to check something out in the hills at the back of town where the views are spectacular, and he would take us along for the ride.

It goes without saying that we accepted with alacrity. And I was so distracted that I forgot about the church that I was trying to photograph when the copper pulled up.

Back at the beach we had to present ourselves again to the guy in the beach chair. And I couldn’t help thinking about Brian Hanrahan and the famous “I cannot tell you how many there were, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back”.

Back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour after lunch I had a shower and a clothes-wash, and then we had a talk on kayak-building and then on the history of survival in the High Arctic.

After tea one of the Inuit guys played guitar and sang for an hour or so, and then I came back to my cabin. I’m having an early night. And I need it too. I’ve been at the photos again and I’m now up to almost 1200.

But I did find a really good photo of the young girl about whom I talked yesterday, which I had taken of her while she was standing perched on a rock, so I gave it to her as a little gift to cheer her up.

I told her that I admired how she had climbed up onto that rock.
“That was easy” she laughed. “Coming down was something else though”
I admired her spirit and sense of humour.

A lie-in tomorrow as we aren’t going far. There’s a storm blowing up down the road and we are going to loiter until it’s passed us by.

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Thursday 22nd August 2019 – JUST FOR A …

… change I was out like a light last night quite early, and stayed out until about 05:20 (which would have been 06:20 in real money of course). I ended up going back to sleep for a while and it was something of a struggle to sort myself out when the alarm went.

After the medication etc I went for a walk on deck to take some photos and it took me a while to find the early-morning orange juice, which wasn’t in the same place as usual. People shouldn’t go around changing my early morning habits when I’m walking around only semi-conscious.

One of the staff joined me briefly for breakfast, and then it was back down here to prepare myself for the morning out.

We’re in a fjord off Disko Island and the plan is to go ashore. We’re divided up into different groups, so I chose to go off with Marc the geologist and learn some more about rocks. And we had a great time too. We’re on proper original bedrock from 3.8 billion years ago, layered with dozens of layers of volcanic rock which had been eroded away by glaciers in certain areas so we could see all of the strata.

As well as that, Rachel the archaeologist had found some old fox traps and we inspected them. The traps were used to catch foxes more for their furs than their meat although that would be eaten too if necessary.

And the walk around the island as far as I went was quite interesting too. I even stumbled upon one or two of our party drying some caribou meat ready for one of the Country Food evenings that we have sometimes. Well, they have, because as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m a vegan.

On the way back we were unlucky enough to miss a whale. One or two of the previous zodiacs had seen it but not us.

On board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a shower and another clothes-washing session and then headed off for lunch. I sat with a guy who for some reason that only he knows, didn’t want to speak and who left the table rather abruptly.

I must change my after-shave.

This afternoon we had a series of lectures (during which I fell asleep) and a singles party. But I’m no good at socialising so I didn’t benefit from it.

There was a Francophone table at tea so I joined it and we had a chat, and that was followed by a disco. I dressed up Strawberry Moose and took him along and he proved to be quite popular as usual.

But woe is me. I made a dreadful mistake. One of the little kids on board (the different one from the other night) who I put at about 11 if she was lucky is in fact just 13 and was most put out when I had a guess at her age and got it so wrong. I’m no good with ages at all.

But now it’s bed-time. I’ve had another major go at the photos and am now up to 18090980 and well into the photos of this trip.

Things are looking up.

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