If it’s windy here, you can’t just get off the water when it gets too strong as for 6 hours out of every 12, you can be 2km from shore with an uneven boulder field between you and a dry campsite. So today we decided to stay put in fairly strong NE winds. We watched the whitecaps from the tent this morning and went back to sleep. Launching is only really practical an hour, or at some places 2 hours either side of high tide. This means we get to lie in longer each day as today high water was 10am, (but then we paddle later too).

This afternoon we walked 4 miles to a river that looked promising for fishing. We found some deserted cabins and then a massive rubbish dump, before coming across a community that we had thought was abandoned ( and that isn’t marked on our map). Aupaluk had a massive water treatment plant, police station, a well stocked store, kids playground, 90 post office boxes and even an ice rink. The people we saw smiled but didn’t engage in conversation with us, apparently not that curious about 2 strangers who walked into town. We left with a box of eggs and some orange juice with lots of unanswered questions. It just felt a bit wierd to start asking questions to someone.

Now we are back in the tent, happy to be out of the wind. Its really very cold when its windy. We may be stuck here tomorrow but we’re hoping for a change in forecast. Thacks to Karel Visel for sending us daily forecasts.

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