Blog Entry

Written by: Man Mountain
Members: Izzy, Luke, Peter, Rachael, Ruth and Sam

We set off on our kayaking phase of the expedition and covered an impressive 8km in the first evening, surrounded by spectacular views of the glaciers around us. We arrived at our first campsite which we quickly christened “pebbly beach,” and tucked into the first of many ration pack meals. Some of us were huge fans, others not quite so keen. After a spot of unsuccessful fishing, we made a campfire on the edge of the beach, although some help from our leader Chris was needed, and a little help from a petrol bottle! Stuey the starfish also enjoyed the fire but luckily from a safe distance.
The following day we paddled around the headland to a rock pool site where we carried out some of the scientific work, which produced some interesting findings. We then completed a 3.5km open sea crossing which was challenging but everyone felt a great sense of accomplishment once completed, and spent the evening in the local village of Nuvsvag where we bought the much needed and loved Coca cola and ice cream!
Day three was by far the most demanding of days; as we had a very early start at 5.30 am, to go and retrieve the stove we had left behind at the rock pool where we had lunch the day before. We then had to paddle approximately 12km to the next camp, which has become known as “flea beach”; for its less than pleasant beach, and residing smell of rotting seaweed.
We then paddled on towards Oksfjord, and had to battle through force 5 winds, luckily nobody capsized but it was challenging and tiring. Later that evening Chris, Lucy and Peter saw a Sea Otter, which was quite exciting for them.
We saw a lot of wildlife on Tuesday, including several Porpoise, Sea Urchins, Trout and a White Tailed Eagle.
The last two days were spent by our fire paddling the considerable distance back to base camp in glorious sunshine, with another overnight camp at Nuvsvag, where we watched the Sunset. Overall we had a great week kayaking.

Rachael”cutter- upper” Wood couldn’t paddle for more than a mile without intercepting someone despite the groups best attempts at paddling as far away as possible. Izzy successfully cut off three people causing a threeway head on collision and due to Ruth and her lightness of paddle, a rather competitive and wet splash war ensued. A triple attack on Luke (Leek) for refusing to sing the group anthem “Reach” by S-Club 7 left his treasured beanie as good as gone to Davy Jones Locker. Sam (Stove Man/God – messiah in training) bought his brother a really big knife much to the fear of the group as his willingness to “Do the Deed” i.e. whittle any emergency spoons on request left many quaking in their boots and running for our ramshackle mess tent built and designed by Sam with his large knife and collapsed by mother nature and Luke’s shoddy gaffa tape work to smash Rachael’s head and sliced Ruth in half, only to be majestically resurrected and which is predicted to be demolished for bad weather conditions. Luke loves Tescos and his love of it sparked many fruitful conversations with Ruth concerning trips to the said supermarket and the products which might fit inside Henry (Ruth’s kayak), as Jeremy (Rachael’s boat) needed to be constantly pumped at each stop to prevent any scuppering. Jasper, Izzy’s boat, was very much loved in spite of his inexplicable weight gains and hindrances at transporting him up the seaweed infested slopes, thanks to Pete’s help at defeating the high tide mark the whole group managed to stay within the camp site limits rather than in open water.