Tag Archives: Rachel ten Bruggencate

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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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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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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Wednesday 21st August 2019 – WE GAIN …

… an hour tonight.

Well, we don’t actually. We really gain two hours tomorrow night but seeing as we are not going near any community tomorrow during the day we will put our clocks back one hour tonight and we’ll do the other hour tomorrow night.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry, because I’m exhausted. And for once I had a decent night’s sleep too. Took me a while to drop off but once I was gone I was gone and I remember nothing at all until the alarms went off. I only just beat the third alarm – and by a matter of seconds – too.

It was a late breakfast but I didn’t take advantage because we are now in another fjord hard by Disko Island with the Eqip Sermia glacier at the end of it. Only a small glacier but a very lively one – one of the fastest glaciers in the world apparently.

Too fast in fact, for just as we were unloading the ship a large piece of ice broke away and calved, causing a tidal wave that crashed one of the kayaks against the rocks and damaged it before the crew had time to secure it..

The resultant chaos took ages to sort out and a 09:00 departure was more like 10:30.

We had a good sail around the face of the glacier watching some calving while they prepared a decent landing for us and eventually they were ready for us at the landing site.

An easy landing, and a beautiful environment but due to the earlier mishap not enough time to visit it properly. By the time that I’d had a geology lesson from Marc and a lengthy history chat with Rachel I was struggling to reach the waterfall.

But when I did – drat and double-drat! I’m not sure how many waterfalls I have visited just recently but I don’t recall visiting even one that didn’t have the sun shining directly over the top spoiling the photos. And this one was no different.

For the money that we are paying for this voyage, you would think that the company would have turned the earth around 90 degrees to give us all a sporting chance.

Back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour we had a barbecue and then I had a shower and washed my expedition clothes. They’ll dry quite quickly. And I … errr … closed my eyes for a second or two (or maybe more.

We had some more lectures (during one of which I fell asleep) and then tea time. I sat with Jerry Kobalenko the explorer and we had a good chat too about all kinds of things, especially diet in the High Arctic.

Another good day for photo editing though. I’m now on 19080785 and just leaving South Pass on my way back to Montana and Winnipeg. So it’s not going as quickly as I would like it. But I’ll get there somehow some day.

Although I’ve a feeling, comparing my screen with a known photo that I took a while ago, that I might have to do all of this editing lark again when I get to a decent screen, whenever that might be.

Only time will tell.

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Monday 19th August 2019 – WE’VE BEEN …

… to Nassuttooq, or Nagssugtoq today – or Nordre Stromfjord as it is more usually known to west Europeans.

At least last night we weren’t interrupted by anything tangible such as a bellow from the bridge down the PA system. However I failed to take full advantage as I had yet another miserable night where I couldn’t really drop off to sleep. It’s really annoying, especially following some of the really belting sleeps that I’ve had on land just recently. The demons must have caught up with me again and I can’t shake them off.

Once more awake long before the alarm, it was still a struggle nevertheless to leave the comfort, warmth and safety of my stinking pit. But there I was up and about something-like, and on the deck in time to take a few photos of the early morning sun. it was then that I remembered that I had forgotten to take my medication.

Breakfast was fairly early today, following which we were fitted for our boots. Not like the army – “too large? Stuff this paper down them!” or “too small? Hold on while I chop off your toes!”. They were actually a decent fit in my case, and even had they not been, an exchange was possible.

Lunch was ridiculously early, like 10:30, and then we hit the zodiacs heading for a landing.

They’d found quite a nice landing today, throwing us out onto a bed of rock and then we had a walk around the area where there was something for everyone. Our archaeologist, Rachel ten Bruggencate, found some fox-traps but Yours Truly, wandering off on his own, found the remains of some ancient temporary hunting lodges and three graves, and I was pleased about that.

Highlight though had to go to the geologist, Marc St Onge, who found the exact pressure point where two continental drift plates had collided with each other. Embedded in the resultant agglomerate were some garnets, formed due to the high pressure exerted by the colliding plates.

Another one of the passengers found a wonderful erratic boulder (there were plenty of those of course but this one was exceptional) that had also come from a similar colliding point but where there had been some volcanic rock.

Back on board the ship we had the usual debriefing and the agenda for tomorrow and also a couple of presentations, one of which I missed due to taking the opportunity to have a shower and wash some clothes. And now the clothes line in my shower has broken.

The marine biologist is an Irish guy whose name I didn’t catch and we had a lengthy chat at tea, following which was our Inuit musician giving a concert. So I went along to listen.

No young girls out exploring the ship this evening and needing assistance to find their way home again, so now it’s bedtime for me. I had passed out in one of the presentations, which means that I must need an early night.

But not before I’ve edited yet another pile of photos. I’m now up to about 365 but it’s not making much impression as the more I edit, the more I seem to be adding in.

I shall never get on top of all of this.

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