ICE! We came across ice today! Or at least so I’m told, I was in bed

Ben Edwards Saturday evening 30 July

ICE!  We came across ice today!  Or at least so I’m told, I was in bed.  It was after my watch, about eleven thirty, as far as I know we were just sailing along and a small chunk of ice floated by.  This is exciting for two reasons: one, we’re getting close to the pack ice which means we’re getting through the journey and two, we’re approaching land again, according to Nikolai we should be in a little bay on a island safely out of the wind by midnight.  This means we’ll have a few hours or days to rest, make repairs and generally enjoy not being tossed around by the waves.  Not long now, I can’t wait. Just now I noticed land off the starboard side.  It’s very faint and there’s not much of it but it’s definitely land which means we’re definitely close to land which his the most exciting thing thats happened all week.  I feel our standards have dropped slightly.  I’ve got a feeling that when we get back to England we’ll all have a hard time adapting, I feel particularly sorry for Barbara, she’s got the ten till two shift.  I’ll just be waking up at six in the morning every day for a month and will be overheating in midwinter.

Onboard the boat there are various rules that you have to follow in order to stay safe.  These include wearing lifejackets while on deck and clipping in and so on.  For most of these rules I’m generally fairly good at keeping them, I haven’t gone overboard or anything.  There is however one rule that I am forever breaking purely by accident.  Hold on.  You’re supposed to hold on to a solid part of the boat with at least one hand at any time.  This is something I can never remember to do.  In my defence I do hold on about fifty percent of the time and make sure I am braced against something most of the time.  Despite this David has quite reasonably asked me to work on it,  wish me luck.

Nikolai just tried to put the generator on.  He tried to put it on but it just refused to start.  He took up the floorboards and had a bit of a look at it.  After a few seconds Nikolai got up and picked up a screwdriver from the side.  He knelt back down to the generator and gave it a thwack with the screwdriver, he got up and pressed the ignition switch gain.  Lo and behold, the generator is on.

Over the past day my cold has got much much better, I can usually breathe a little through my nose now and the headache and sore throat are gone.  I intend never to go on watch again without a hat.  Or a hood.

We hope to be anchored up against the shore in about three hours.  I can’t wait to be able to stand straight I might even stop falling out of bed.  Anyway, I’ll write again tomorrow when we’re anchored.  The last thing I want to say is that I’m reading the Lord Of The Rings and I’ve memorised whats written on the inside of the ring, Ash nazg durbatulúk, ash nazg gimbatúl, ash nazg thrakatulúk agh burzum-ishi krimpatúl.  Bye