A south wind has been hammering us for the last few days and is wearing our nerves but at least we’re not moving. The sea floor is rocky here and is providing excellent purchase for our “faux” anchors. The reality is that the two anchors we found in Paulatuk last week aren’t true anchors in the real sense but rather reasonable similes – one is a three fingered hook that once acted as a buoy anchor and the other simply two pieces of 1/2″ plate steel (roughly an iPad in length and width) welded together by a 1/4″ diameter steel bar. In a sandy sea bed they have a tendency of slipping, especially when its been blowing as hard as it has been but not today.
Being stuck on anchor means lots of cabin time and everything that comes with that. Our cabin is approximately 6ft wide by 7ft long (roughly the size of a king size bed) and is 3′-6″ at the high point sloping to about 2ft at the far end. In this space we store all our personal gear including sleeping bags and matts, clothes and toiletries and all the other items we want close at hand like a book, an journal, a coffee cup and bowl, an iPod, a water bottle and maybe even a small flask of single malt. Add to this the essential equipment like the navigation panel, the electrical panel, a fire extinguisher, a large pelican case with all our communication equipment including two satellite phones, two Spot Check devices, two laptops and a huge assortment of cables and plugs and another smaller pelican case with our Nikon D600 SLR and accompanying telephoto lens and things start to get tight. Arrange all this gear in the periphery of the king size bed and plunk down four reasonably big guys, unwashed and unkept, one or two slightly foul and all very tired and you begin to get a clearer picture of what it’s like in our cabin.
But all four of us are in the cabin only when it’s storming outside – otherwise two would be rowing – so take the said king size bed with all the gear and clothing on the periphery and the four jaded rowers in the middle and the start to shake it violently in every imaginable direction and keep doing it for hours and hours at a time. Now you likely understand why being on anchor can be a testing experience.
This has been our lot for the better part of the last 36 hours. We’re looking forward to an easing of the wind.
~Kevin
