Ben Edwards 31 July Nordenshel’da Archipelago
Hello, so, news of the moment is that we’re anchored. Today at seven o’clock exactly we sailed into a sheltered bay in the middle of an archipelago just west of a passage made up of three islands, that is where the proper ice starts. It is a huge relief. We’ve been sailing non stop for the last eleven days and though you don’t really notice it during the journey twenty four hour travel really grinds you down. Inside this bay we have almost no wind and absolutely no swell. The boat is level for the first time in two weeks and I can lie flat in my bunk. The surrounding area is very familiar. It’s basically Scotland. Low brown bleak moors with bits of jutting rock here and there. There is some ice about but it’s mainly on the low rocky beaches that are dotted about everywhere. We haven’t done much after anchoring. Mostly we’ve just been sitting around and enjoying not moving for a few hours. Lots of effort was put into dinner this evening. We brought a set of pizza bases that we got out and made pizzas with. Those were nice and afterwards we had steamed puddings with custard. We’re all going to bed relatively early, about ten o’clock, and then we have anchor watch.