Ben Edwards crew 20 August from the East Siberian Sea
We’re through the Laptev Sea! We’ve passed the strait and are now in the East Siberian Sea, this morning we passed the midway mark between the island and the mainland and crossed over the seas. Irritatingly we were expecting to have the current with us for that and instead we’ve been losing about two knots to it. While passing the strait we did see some ice to our south, luckily it wasn’t a very big patch and it didn’t curve round to the north so we didn’t hit it. Today the engine has developed a rather odd habit. Every now and then it suddenly revs up without command for a couple of seconds and then calms down again for a couple of minutes before doing it again. We have no idea why it’s doing this and it doesn’t seem to have affected anything, it’s just an odd and slightly worrying noise. There is good news as well though, in three days time we’ll be half way round! The second half back to Bristol should be much quicker than the first two legs. In the first two we were always stopping in ports and for ice and we spent a week in that bay where we saw the polar bear and her cubs. We shouldn’t need to do any of that on the way back. Hopefully no stopping due to ice, repairs, volcanic eruptions or a large duck called Jeff in a top hat and spats. In the meantime we just have to sit back and wait, we should be in Point Barrow in around nine days and have our little crew change, bye