Justine’s Blog

We only made 14 nautical miles today with an increasing wind which threatened to blow our paddles out of our hands, and blow anything away that wasn’t tied on tightly. SE sounded good in the forecast as we are now heading roughly west but the coastline is heavily indented with many steep valleys. Its very beautiful, the landscape had changed dramatically since 2 days ago. In Ungava bay a tall hill was 60 metres, now every headland soars steeply up to 100 or 200 metres, jagged impressive peaks interspersed with more distinct valleys and beaches. These narrow valleys are very effective wind funnels and each time we crossed a bay, we’d cross a line from the shelter of the headland into the fury of a sidewind. Whitecaps, cats paws, waves breaking on us… we’d endure the onslaught for the 2 or 5 km crossing before the wind bent around slightly behind us at the far end pushing us onwards for a few hundred metres to rewards our efforts. Then we’d round the new headland and do it again.

After lunch, the wind was angry and we felt we were using a lot of energy and running the gauntlet, risking being blown out to sea if the wind increased. We turned towards a beach 1.5 km away, now battling straight into the blasts. It took us 30 minutes to reach the beach where we are now camped. We will get an early night and hope for a calm early morning start tomorrow.

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We moved all of 1.65km today! We probably should have known not to launch when i had to change my footing to avoid getting blown over by a gust while packing the tent, but the wind seemed in a good direction and we thought we'd give it a try. The wind was slightly helpful for the first km but as we turned NW it was unhelpful and pushing us offshore. We estimate at least 30 knots and we had to lean in to it to avoid capsizing. We could have battled it for about 3km before the coastline turned approximately N/S again and we could get shelter or even a bit of assistance, but it would have been really slow, exhausting progress with next stop an island 90km to the east if something went wrong.

Ironically as we were faced with the full wrath of the wind, a beautiful campsite came into view. A long steep gravel beach leading up to a green flat mossy platform, in a small inlet, somewhat sheltered from the relentless gusts. We laughed to each other, th inking about trolleying the kayaks up a rock face last night and somehow securing the tent to the rock with the kayaks. JF did an amazing job of setting up our "bear fence" on the kayaks with paddles, throwlines and the trolley. Our packalarm is a trip wire that is invisible but which emits a loud siren when a bear (Our more usually me or JF) walks through it. We could have paddled an extra 15 minutes last night and had a beautiful vast campsite! But we both agreed that we enjoyed last night's high spot and as it turns out, we get to enjoy this one too as the wind hasn't relented and its switched to a chilly NW. We plan to get up at 3am tomorrow and get on the water soon afterwards if the wind is calmer.

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My first thought was that there was a sheep walking on the rocks maybe 200 metres away. I saw the movement of white and my brain, used to paddling in Wales, grasped a familiar idea! It probably only took a fraction of a second before I realised what it really was, and in the same instant, JF, was pointing and excitedly saying"bear". It's day 12 of our Arctic kayaking trip and I was beginning to forget about polar bears as every other sighting had turned out to be an iceberg or a patch of snow, but here was a real live one lumbering along the rocky shore, head down, maybe looking for food. He looked up now, towards us, nose in the air, trying to smell us but we were downwind so he was spared the stench of 12 day old thermals. I was thankful that we were on the water and he was on land, although we had only been paddling 5 minutes from our campsite. He was heading in that direction and was only a few hundred metres away.

We took photos and exc itedly admired the magnificent animal, again glad he was happily occupied on a different element to us. After a minute or so he walked away, disappearing behind some rocks before reappearing further away. We carried on paddling happily, making the most of a strong following sea to push us in the right direction today. The forecast was for 35 knot gusts and it may have got close to that at times, it was certainly strong enough in the late afternoon that i had to put my mapcase under my bungys to stop it blowing everywhere. We were paddling close to shore at the time with offshore islands close to our right, so it felt safe to harness the power of the wind with a good safety net. We made very good speed and are probably less that 35km from a small Inuit community.

We had a late start today due to a thunder and lightning storm in the morning. At first I didn't believe JF that there was thunder as it was so windy that it sounded to me like the tent flapping, but then i saw the lightning, followed by an unmistakably loud rumble. We waited a couple of hours to make sure it had cleared and launched at noon. That meant it was low tide by the time we landed and we struggled to find a spot. We ended up on a smooth flatish rock, a few metres above a high high tide, with a steep but fairly smooth route up that we could wheel the kayaks up. Its now even windier and we are finally ready for bed at 11pm.

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Rain fell on us last night and at times today, the first rain we’ve had on the trip since our first night. Thankfully our hilleberg Tarra tent kept us warm and dry and its often a shock when we unzip it and find that it’s cold outside. The forecast was for quite strong west then sw winds but it was more NW in the morning which slowed us down for the first 3 hours. We launched at 10.30am which was 3 hours before high water because waiting until 1.30 seemed too late! We risked committing ourselves to a short day, or 12+ hours of paddling if we had to wait until mid tide before we could land somewhere.

We saw quite a few noisy birds of prey with nests on prominent headlands. They made themselves known to us, i guess to tell us to stay clear.

There were a few reasonable low tide landing options today and in the end we spotted a nice step gravel slope leading to a sandy beach. We landed at 8.30pm, an hour after low tide after 10 hours in the kayaks and 30 nautical miles.

We’re at that stage of the trip where days merge together, i forget what day it is and I’m looking forward to a shower whenever that may be! We’re not that far from Quaqtaq, a community which is about our half way point and where we shipped a resupply. Its probably 2 paddling days away.

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