Wednesday 12 September 2012

War, Inuit, Ice and Polar Bears

Early this morning we lifted anchor at 0500 hrs and set course for the East side of Clavering Ø. At 0800 hrs we landed with the first boats on Dødemandsbugten (dead mans bay). In 1823 this was the first an last encounter between Europeans and an unknown Inuit settlement. Many eskimo ruins are within the beach area.
In the area the remnants of the first HQ of the North East Greenland Sledge patrol during the war is present. It consists of one main building and the foundations of two others. Two fortifications made of old fuel drums filled with rocks and sand are placed in the vicinity, littered with .50 caliber cartridges. The station was built in 1943 but was moved to Daneborg in 1944.
Today we saw two saw 2 polar foxes at Dødemandsbugten.
At the moment we are sailing south in the pack-ice, trying to reach Nordfjord tonight...
Sailing in the ice we saw many polar-bear tracks on the ice, but now bears. Suddenly during dinner we heard „polar-bear“ on the speaker, so everyone ran away from dinner and desert. The disapointment was big as we could not find the bear again, but a few of the passengers saw it.
Half an hour later the loudspeaker roamed again "Big polar-bear on the pack-ice" everybody ran out again and there it was! Not only one but two, three and four. It was a mother with 3 large cubs, which is very un-normal. Usually a mother bear only get 1-2 cubs and if she get 3, usually they get skinny and die. What a GREAT evening!
still water in the river, unfortunately it was to late for us to fish since it is late autumn now.