The days have started to merge into one. I have no idea what day of the week it is and had to check today that’s we’ve paddled 18 days. I can feel I’ve got stronger, I notice that the kayaks don’t feel as heavy when we carry them to and from the water. My back muscles ache with the first few strokes every day and then I get in the groove and it all feels good. My hands are the most beat up part. My pogies rubbed a tiny bit of skin off my thumbs on day one and although I’ve barely worn them since, the sores have got worse. Other rubs that appeared from trying to wear the pogies differently, from wearing gloves, pushing gear into hatches or unidentified causes will also not get better until after the trip. Twice a day, I rub some antibiotic cream on them for some relief and a bit of healing before the salt water gets into them again. I think the cold makes my skin more sensitive as abrasions and rashes appear so easily.

I woke early this morning because I was too hot. That doesn’t usually happen here! A southerly wind brought warmer air and the sun beat down on us. We were treated to the full vista of majestic domes and jagged peaks as we paddled 8km across Saglek inlet to a group of large islands. I gazed back at a near vertical cliff that soared up to the clouds. We paddled at its feet yesterday and didn’t see it. I was grateful for one last long look at the striking Torngat mountains as we left the National park.

We headed towards the bright white domes of a manned US radar station perched on top of the jagged cape just south of the park border. We spot a storage building and fuel tanks a couple hundred meters up from a small beach and can just make out parts of the road that winds up to the high station. We bypass “base camp”, a summertime camp for tourists and parks Canada staff. When it opens next week, there will be a visitors, flown in to the small airport shared with the radar station, staying in prospector tents, protected from polar bears by an electric fence and armed guard. There’s a skeleton crew there now and our contact at parks Canada, Andrew Andersen, who has been a great help, said we may get a hot meal and Shower if we called in. I always enjoy interactions with people in remote places so my vote was to visit but Larry and frank wanted to push on. They
didn’t want to make the 10km round trip detour for the possibility of a few luxuries, preferring the promise of staying at a cabin tomorrow night in Hebron if we did more mileage today and put ourselves in striking distance. Noah Nochasak, a kayaker from Nain, has also been a great help and he has a cabin there. After 8 days of Bear watch, it will be very nice to get a full nights sleep in a cabin.

Cape umiak soars vertically from the ocean to 450 meters tall. It’s easier for any wind to accelerate around it than go over it. Today it accentuated the moderate breeze into a fierce torrent. One minute we were paddling along chatting, gazing up at the stripy cliffs and down at a condosize ice berg stuck on shallow rocks, glinting blue in the sun. The next I was tightening my hat and tilting my head down against waves that splashed up onto my sunglasses as my bow crashed up and down into steep waves. Conversation was over, the tumbling waves and whistling wind would make anything but shouts hard to hear and we were too busy concentrating on paddling. I watched the view of the rocks to my left shift slowly. despite the current being with us, the wind and chop were slowing progress. Still, it was progress and I was enjoying the work out, pushing hard with my feet, clenching my stomach. It’s the first cape that’s really challenged us and it felt fitting.

We gathered together an hour later in the much reduced wind. Whooh! Larry summed it up.
We’d hoped to camp at a valley just south of the cape but steep rocks and a half metre swell made it infeasible, the next promising place was an hour away, with no guarantees so we settled for a tiny cobble beach which opens into a100 metre long cobbly gully. It’s not our prettiest campsite but it’s home for the night.

We saw 2 black bears today. One above each campsite on the rocks! Both curious and starting at us for a while then heading on their way