Sunday 3 August 2008

Reflections 7032 12923

The sea is polished undulating metal - grey, blue, white reflections - greenish water. There are whales to starboard - spouts V shaped and bushy (Carol, thanks for spout descriptions - was unable to download in Tuk, so don't have them with me)and they seem to hang in the air for ages, white against the misty horizon that merges sea and sky so that there is no definition. I saw graceful tail flukes. A seal, small, curious, followed us for a bit. There's been a bug sitting on Kevvo but he's gone. A gaggle of birds breaking the reflections as they sit on the water in silhouette half a mile away.

The grib gives us no wind for a day and we're trickling along with the engine just above idle at at about 4 knots, a trail of little bubbles behind on the silver surface and the faint disturbance of our wake the only ruffle on the surface. Generations of Eskimos have been here on the ice and in their boats hunting bears and seals and whales, then the whalers, the explorers Amundsen, Stefansson and all the rest plus the missionaries - and now there's just us.

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