I wanted to be at home having a hot bath, and watching a movie snuggled up on the sofa with the wood burner roaring. I’d have roast chicken and roast potatoes for dinner and some fresh fruit afterwards. Why did i choose, instead, to spend my time battling into a headwind in pea soup fog, unable to see anything for the last 2 hours, with stiff, tired muscles and freezing feet in the 4 degree Arctic? This morning I wondered what my mother and sister probably wonder more often! Why chose to send a month on an expedition in a cold inhospitable place and give yourself a limited number of days to achieve a target? I could be on a hot beach with a drink and a swimming pool?!

More realistically, I really wanted to land, put the tent up and go back to sleep. Some minutes, hours or even days, I am not enjoying myself, it’s hard work, I’m tired, the elements are conspiring to reduce our hard grind to a snails pace. But i have been through the ups and downs enough to know that my smile will return when I see something beautiful, or have a seal pop up beside me, or a tail wind springs out of nowhere, and later I’ll feel good that I fought through my self imposed battle.

3 hours later, the fog lifted, the sun burned down brightly on us and the wind dropped. A seal popped up behind us. The fog played with us all day, clearing to show us the island ahead, then creeping in stealthily to cover the hills in a blanket of white, so we could see no trace of land. At 6pm, after over 9 hours on the water, a favourable current picked up and sped us towards Cape Neptune. We hadn’t planned to paddle that far but we couldn’t resist a free ride. We flew around the corner and into a channel behind Cape Prince of Wales, with a couple of knots of assistance. We landed near a small cabin, still inside the channel, with the shortest portage of the trip, all of 10 metres up to where our tent is now. So after a low start to the day for me, we covered over 55km, enjoyed some beautiful light displays, and had flocks of birds fly so close to us in the mist that the noise of their wing beats startled me. I’m feeling very good about being out here in the beautiful
Canadian Arctic. But I am looking forward to a hot bath and a movie in front of the fire.

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