We had to work a bit harder for our progress today. The steep boulder beach we landed easily on yesterday was being hounded by meter high waves this morning. Larry launched first. He pulled his kayak from the sloping rocks where he’d loaded it into the sea between partly submerged boulders. By the time he was in position, a big set was rearing up a few meters in front of him. He had to hold his kayak steady while white water sprayed up all around him. After three large waves passed, he jumped into the cockpit and pushed away from shore. Once on the water, a headwind turned yesterday’s mill pond into a dynamic mogul field. This part of the coastline is indented with many long fjords and we needed to paddle across several large openings of 5 km. Our kayaks bounced up and down on the chop, waves crashing over the bow. The forecast claimed it was 16°C today, but it doesn’t account for the wind over the icy sea which makes me shiver whenever I stop paddling. There aren’t many easy places to land without going several kilometers up inside a fjord. After 20 km we found a tiny strip of sandy beach for lunch, and immediately pulled on our storm cage and wooly hats. We still had energy in the tank, but stopped a couple of hours later at a beautiful, red sandy beach. because the coast ahead looked rocky and uninviting for as far as we could see. Its a gorgeous spot, a swathe of sand backed by an oval lake. Towered over by a jagged triangular peak with a giant cleft down the middle. The red color, apparently comes from garnet eroded from the rocks.

I was going to write that we didn’t see a polar bear today, but my blog writing was recently interrupted with one wandering close to camp. A lot of shouting and a flare gun sent him running. Everyone got up and we watched him wander far away. We think he was just passing through. On day twelve, the bear watch had paid off.