Saturday 14th July Trygghamna to Eidembukta
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Sun 15 Jul 2012 18:28
In the morning Fiona and Hannah collected rifles and other shore-going kit
and set out on a fox hunt while James and Peter stayed on
board to tackle the windlass.
They had to unbolt it from the deck and then dismantle it, but actually it
was pretty straightforward and besides James has had to do this a number of
times over the years since the windlass has not been a reliable bit of kit;
it's on its 3rd electric motor.
After cleaning out the old grease the problem was easy to spot: a grub-screw
had come out of one of the splined cogwheels and jammed in the teeth. It
took quite a long time to extract it and then realign that cog with the
keyway on that shaft and reinsert the grub-screw using plenty of Loctite,
but we had all tools for the job including circlip pliers and even spare
gaskets. We had just finished when Fe and Hannah returned to the boat
having had their own adventures.
They had walked down the shore line towards the Alkhornet bird cliffs and
had met the local policeman, Robin. He'd been cleaning his teeth outside the
Sysselmans' hut and hadn't noticed when they snuck up behind him with a
rifle. However he was quite genial about the whole shock, and spent some
time explaining his role. The reindeer herds suffered massive losses over
the last winter when unexpectedly it rained in West Svalbard then froze
solid. The reindeer were unable to scrape away the ice to get at any forage
and simply starved to death. Robin's role is to survey numbers of remaining
reindeer over the summer as well as managing any tourist visits. he was kind
enough to not be bothered about the girls and they were directed to walk up
to the base of the Alkhornet where the birds were wheeling and
screaming.
Despite the fox dens being evident the foxes were having a shy
day or had all gone to lunch elsewhere as none were seen, however on
returning to the boat several mature barnacle geese escorted their new
babies across the dangerous beach and into sea water for the first time. It
was like watching a lollipop lady at a pedestrian crossing as they protected
and chivvied and herded their young.
After a late lunch we set off for Forland Sundet. The wind was still from
the NW, about F3, so we tacked which took some time and arrived in
Eidembukta around 11pm local time. En route the sky cleared and instead of
low cloud we had brilliant sunshine and blue sky with wonderful views of
white mountains with glaciers. Eidembukta is much better than Trygghamna as
an anchorage: it's in a snug cove behind some skerries and well protected
from all but SE winds, with room for scores of yachts although we were
alone. It reminds us of Carrick Luz (aka the Stegasaurus anchorage) on the Lizard
peninsular in Cornwall.