Diary 2007 - English

Since 1999 we’ve travelled approximately 22.000 km in our attempt of being the first make a complete circumpolar navigation around the Arctic in open boat ever. We have had a lot of difficulties, but we’ve also met a lot of very kind and helpful people along the route. And our problems have opened a lot of doors in the North Atlantic, in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and in Russia.

Now we face a difficult part of the expedition; the most north of Siberia. We have a total of 5.500 km left before our circumpolar navigation is finished, but we will probably not be able to complete this year because the ice in the very north Cape Tjeluskin rarely moves until very late August or first half of September.

Most likely we can go to Tiksi which is approximately 4.500 km from Naryan-Mar. Previously we had a lot of troubles due to very poor gasoline in the Russian north, but this year we try with help from Adventure Club in Moscow to get gasoline depots out on our route.

The first depot with 1.600 l gasoline is at the YamalPeninsula, and the next is in Dikson where we have 4.400 l in depot. Half of this will be brought to CapeTjeluskin either by ship or helicopter. Maybe another depot with 500 l will be brought from Tiksi to a point 300 km to the west of Tiksi. So – to complete this part of the expedition quite a logistic work has to be done. Dmitry Shparo and Adventure Club are working on this.

From Denmark to Naryan-Mar, 2007

The last days in Denmark were busy, and Frederik, Ole Jorgen and I had to get all our equipment together. It showed a total of 153 kg, which were quite a bit more, than we were allowed to bring as usual baggage. But we got good help from Aeroflot, and everything was brought to Moscow as planned.

In Moscow we met with Dmitry Shparo and our participant Sergei Epishkin. Also in Moscow we had a few busy days to get the last things together. Dmitry introduced us to a young man (16 years old) Senia, who was going to be our helper in Moscow and in Naryan-Mar. Senia was a very fine youngster, who were a great mix between an American fighter pilot, Steve and his wife Karla, who was a Russian journalist.

As we arrived in Naryan-Mar we were met by our good friend and fantastic helper Jury Tuliabaev. Jury helped us last year and during the winter all our baggage had been in his garage. Now he had arranged that we could live for free in the apartment of his mother. It was very good to meet again with our friend. Jury is a very busy man, and he’s got no less than five different businesses to take care of. Even he was busy we could always count on his help day and night. He would be there to help immediately when we needed his help.

In Naryan-Mar we found our boat and equipment untouched, and we could start the work to get everything ready. Also Sergei had busy time working with the authorities in port, police and Boundary Service. After a few days we were ready to go August the 1^st. But the weather wasn’t ready, and we had to wait. We left Naryan-Mar at noon August the 3^rd.

We left Naryan- Mar in nice weather, and after four hours we entered the Barents Sea. We had sunny weather and almost no winds. We continued and got into heavy fog, and we could only navigate by using our GPS. During the night Frederik suddenly shouted – walruses! Those who took a nab, woke up immediately and we saw walruses everywhere in the sea. Groups of 3-8 walruses swam and when we neared the groups they stopped and looked curiously at us in the water. They were huge, and they when we got close to them they often took a green, bad smelling shit in the water. Anyway it was a fantastic experience, and we filmed and pictured the scenery as well as possible in the misty dark that surrounded us.

We continued into to KaraSea, and the fog was still heavy. We only saw a little bit of land in the Yugorskij Char. Approximately 650 km from Naryan-Mar the wind picked up, and as we neared the River Kara on the south side of the KaraSea, the wind became quite strong. We decided to go into to river and wait for better weather. A small village showed up. It looked comfortable, but unfortunately it wasn’t easy to get into the river. A large sand bar blocked the most of the entrance, and we had to find the small whole were we could get into the river.

I asked everybody to take on their survival suits in case we should capsize in our attempt. The wind continued to become stronger, but finally we discovered the entrance, and got into the bay at the mouth of the river. We grounded once, but got free without further troubles. At 7 o’clock in the morning we entered the shore next to the village Ust Kara, and immediately we got into good contact with the local people.

In Ust Kara, we got good help from the meteorological station. They very kindly helped us with our boat and equipment, and they invited us to live in the met house. The present head and only met person in the house was the kind woman Ludmilla. She got practical help from Dmitry and his 16 years old son Parsha. Dmitry arranged a nice and warm banja for us, and we had the opportunity to clean ourselves – which was a good thing!

Our first day in Kara we slept away, but the next day we went to a city competition, where young people – and a few elderly were competing in different disciplines, like weightlifting, jumping over plastic boxes and throwing heavy metal weights as long as possible. Our Frederik wanted to participate, and he took the competitors with storm. He jumped high and threw the metal weights very far, and finally he got honoured with a medal. Afterwards children from the school made a nice show in the city club.

The following days we got little closer to people, and sometimes they gave us fish for eating or showed us a positive interest in other respects. One time a nenet man arrived to the met station on his sled with five reindeers in front. He mushed the reindeers professionally and he wanted us to take pictures of himself and us in front of the reindeers and our boat. Unfortunately he was a little bit drunk, but he wasn’t unfriendly.

Finally we managed to get out at the sea, and in heavy fog, we continued towards the YamalPeninsula, where we arrived after almost 2 hours of sailing. It was still fuggy, and we almost couldn’t see the coast. Later on we saw some of it, but the coast wasn’t very interesting – it was mainly flat with a lot of sand.

After a few hours, Frederik took the steering. He was very tired, but wanted to give it a try. Sergei stood next to him, and Ole Jorgen and I were in the “man cave”, under the hard top. Suddenly Frederik made some very big turns at the steering, and he circulated the boat to try to find the right way.

Unfortunately he forgot to trim the engines. And he had a complete “white out” at the same time, and as a result a lot of water splashed into the boat and directly into the head of Sergei, who got completely wet – and so scared, that he didn’t dare to move into Ole Jorgen and me. Instead he kept getting more and more water over him, and Ole Jorgen and I almost couldn’t breathe of laughing. It looked extremely funny. Finally Frederik realised, that he wouldn’t have success, and he handled me the steering.

After another few hours we arrived to the little port, in which we had our depot. After some difficulties due to shallow waters, we managed to get into the harbour. One of the fist things we saw looked like a fatamorgana. A woman in bikini went to swim in the water – here at 71 degrees north??? We looked at each other. This couldn’t be true. After swimming she took a red kimono on, and went back to a crane – then waved to us. This was more than we could believe.

Now we sailed the boat to another crane where we should live. At this crane we were welcomed by captain Vasili and his wife Lilia. Our gasoline were placed in a container on the crane, and we should live here, until we could continue our travel. But at first we got a very good sleep, followed by warm supper and Russian banja.

1st depot – Herasavay.

The following days we lived at the crane. It was interesting to see how life was on a crane like this, and the crew, were very kind to us. Saturday we tanked our canisters with gasoline from our depot – we filled up 23 canisters, each containing 65 lt. We managed to do this within 3,5 hour, and as we were about finished, two nenet men arrived at the crane. They were dressed in skin clothes, and they had “parked” their reindeer sleds just next to the port area – at the nearby tundra.

Frederik looked at the things they had for sale, but unfortunately their “shop” only consisted of a bunch reindeer antler, still with fur on and with bloody ends, where they had been sawed off. Frederik had a little difficulty to see what these things could be used for. Maybe soup??? Or maybe as souvenir? It wasn’t really interesting.

Then Frederik found interest in a homemade knife one of the men wore in his belt. He started to see if he could buy the knife, and he would pay a good price, and even give two special steel plates with artificial diamonds for sharpening knives bin trade. But no matter the price, the knife wasn’t for sale. Then Frederik realised, that he had to trade knife with the man. Frederik had a very nice homemade knife in his own belt, and now he asked if they could change knives. Now the nenet man was interested, but he also wanted one of the knife sharpeners. And finally they agreed and changed knives.

Later this day we were went on a visit to another crane together with the people from the crane, where we lived. And here we got a great meal, and we had I nice evening. When we were about to return to our crane, one of the women – Valentina from the crane decided to go swimming in the cold bay. None of us found an interest in joining, but it was fantastic to see how she took a swimming tour here at 71 degrees north.

Not much happened the following days. The weather was bad, but Tuesday it looked better, and in the afternoon we started to pack our things for continuing our expedition. At 21.00 we left the crane and our good friends, captain Vasili and his wife Lilia, Michail, Alexander, captain Stanislav and others. We went towards Dikson – the next village 725 km to the northeast.

Herasavey to Dikson.

We left Herasavey in very good weather and beautiful evening sun. There wasn’t much wind, and we travelled almost directly to the north along the YamalPeninsula. The first 250 km didn’t provide much help of an emergency “port”. It was a sandy coast without any bays.

After a while I went into the man cave, and as I relaxed on top of our equipment my thoughts went back home to my wonderful family. I missed them, and I had many thoughts of our previous travels etc. – travels to Fiji and New Zealand, but also memories of expedition last summer together with my children from Denmark to Kirkenes in the most north of Norway.

The night was only four hours and it didn’t get really dark. As the sun stood up we turned towards east at the very north of the YamalPeninsula. We continued our travel through the day, and sometimes had heavy fog, and other times wind and waves. A few times we almost hit a piece of driftwood, and it was obvious, that there was a lot of this, and we had to take good care.

The last 40 km towards Dikson became very wet sailing as the wind and waves came directly in from the side. Ole Jorgen sailed the boat at this time and Sergei stood at his side. Unfortunately Sergei had forgotten to close his floating suit, and later we saw, that he had got a lot of water inside the suit. He was very wet.

Finally we reached Dikson, and we were met by Boundary Service. A young man Archoum, who spoke very good English, took care of us, and very fast he arranged that all our equipment could stay in a Boundary Service ship, and he also arranged an appartment where we could live – it was the apartment of his chief, but like everywhere in Russia, people like to help.

Dikson

We arrived to Dikson August 15th and we have now been here for more than a week. The ice situation to the north is not very good, and we have to wait for better conditions. Dmitry Shparo has made an agreement with the owner of a fishing ship which is going to Tiksi as well, that they can bring some of our gasoline. We will meet them two times between Dikson and Tiksi and receive gasoline.

The fishing ship must go to Tiksi because it shall be used in the search of mammoth tusk. They tried to sail it last year, but the ice conditions were too difficult and the ship had to stay in Dikson. We have become good friends with the crew, and we now trust, that they will be a good help for us.

A few days ago we visited the met station at an island just west of Dikson, and they were very helpful with information and prognoses concerning weather and ice. We also visited an abandoned school at the island, and it was very sad to see this good school completely destroyed.

Archoum from the Boundary Service in Dikson has been the most incredible help here, and he will do everything he can to support us. A couple of days ago, we were able to help a little to Boundary Service, because Archoum and 14 other people from Boundary Service needed to go go from the island to Dikson, and we could help by sailing them in our good boat.

For the moment we wait for good weather, and maybe Friday or Saturday will give us a possibility of going closer to the ice. If so, we will travel 500 km to the north, and wait for better ice conditions and for the fishingship.

Diary 8, 2007

Dikson continued.

We are unfortunately still in Dikson, because we have some difficulties to get our gasoline to the north. Our next leg on the expedition should bring us to Tiksi – 2.400 km from here. But for this travel we need to fill up with gasoline once or twice depending on where this refueling can take place.

This off course is frustrating especially when the weather and the ice conditions are good for us. Meanwhile we try to learn as much as possible about Dikson, and we’ve visited the school, the library and the administration of the town.

The mayor and his staff treated us very well – they were very glad to see tourists in Dikson. We are the first this year. They are working on an interesting plan of making arrangements for hunters and fishers. They have very good possibilities of hunting reindeer at the tundra. And also the fishing possibilities are very good. So the town will try to get hunting and fishing tourists to Dikson.

I hope this will be possible, and I’m sure, that those who will go here for hunting and fishing will have very good experiences and adventures in Dikson.

Our great helper and friend in Dikson, Archtoum from Boundary Service invited us to a nice dinner in his home a few days ago. His wife and the local procecuter were there too, and we had a wonderful evening.

The English teacher Albert has also become our very good friend here in Dikson and Albert has shown us the school and invited us to his home on DiksonIsland. He is fishing in his freetime, not with net, but with rod, which is quite unusual here, but the fishing waters are perfect.

On August 27^th 1942 the Germans attached Dikson with a battleship, but the defence of Dikson was a success, and the Germans had to return wounded. Seven seamen and soldiers died in Dikson, and every year on August 27^th Dikson remember the soldiers who lost their lives and celebrate, that they kicked out the Germans. We had the opportunity to participate in this celebration Monday, and off course it was very interesting for us.

Today we finally got the positive message, that it will be possible to transport our gasoline from Dikson to CapeTjeluskin, 900 km to the northeast. The details about this transport will be ready tomorrow, but it seems realistic to have this transport finished in the beginning of next week. Because of safety it will be necessary to use two helicopters for the transport.

I have in the previous diaries mentioned Archtoum as our great helper here in Dikson. Unfortunately I have spelled his name wrong. It must be spelled Artoym, and his full name is Artoym Samsonov.

Again tonight he showed us his fantastic help by promising to arrange all the practical things about moving gasoline from the fishing ship to the helicopters and to get it inside the helicopters here in Dikson. It is a very big help, because we don’t need to be here, and we can continue our travel as soon as all details are prepared and the weather is good.

Also the mayor Nikolay Petukhov promised to help us here in Dikson, if we for some reason had to stop here this year. He will arrange that our boat and equipment can stay in one of the houses of the municipal, and it will be free of charge. This is a very big help, because we have a secure place for our boat and equipment if we can’t continue to Tiksi.

In the administration house we met Ludmilla too. She is the economical chief of the community, and she could speak a little English, which she had learned from listening to English music etc. She hopes one day, to be able to go to London and visit the home of Sherlock Holmes, and the country from where Beatles came from.

AB, August 30^th 2007

Saturday, September the 1^st the school started in Dikson as well as in the rest of Russia. It was a very nice day at the school and pupils as well as teachers had prepared a great performance of songs, speaks and small sketches. Everybody was dressed in the finest clothes and we saw they had a very nice tradition concerning school start.

After this part we told some teachers, pupils and parents about our expedition and about Greenland, and they seemed to be very interested. Afterwards the teachers invited us to another room, where they served homemade cake, champagne and cognac. It was a very nice afternoon, and the teachers had many questions to us.

Later we sailed Albert to the DiksonIsland where he invited us to a great dinner made by his wife, and we had a wonderful evening in their company.

When we returned we got some bad information. It wasn’t possible to get our gasoline by helicopter to CapeTjeluskin anyway, because it was too heavy. When we went to bed we were quite depressed.

Now it’s Monday, and today we got new good information concerning the fishing ship, which might be the solution despite of all previous problems. Now it looks like there might be a chance to get our gasoline by this ship almost to CapeTjeluskin, but we still haven’t got all the details. But we have a little hope – that’s not so bad.

A few days ago, we packed all our equipment and were ready to continue our voyage. But when we later got the ice charts we realised, that it probably wouldn’t be possible to go to Tiksi anyway, because there were 300 km with very heavy ice along the northeast coast of the TajmyrPeninsula. A long period with wind from north had pressed the ice all the way into the coast, and we wouldn’t have a chance to get through.

The fishing ship wasn’t ready too, and we would risk, that we couldn’t get the gasoline to Cape Chelyuskin. Instead we decided to stop the expedition for this summer, and to leave the boat and equipment in Dikson. The mayor, Nicolay Petukhov has been a great help in this project, and he has arranged, that everything is placed safe and good for the winter.

The fishing ship tried yesterday to make an attempt of going to the north. The skipper André announced a couple of days ago, that they would try. Maybe they would be lucky. He arranged a farewell ceremony at the ship, and we had a good evening with the crew and good friends in Dikson. Then he tried to start yesterday, but now it was stormy, and he had to return after 5 hours. For the moment we don’t know if they will try again.

Everything is ready for wintering here in Dikson, and we will return to civilisation in a few days. First from Dikson to Norilsk, and then we continue by plane to Moscow and finally to Denmark.

We will probably not be able to start from Dikson until late august next summer, and because it might be very late in September until we reach Tiksi, we risk, that we can not complete the expedition next year. But we will try.

AB, September 10^th 2007