Børge Ousland

We are speeding across the Barents Sea. At the moment we’re approximately 450 nautical miles from the mainland, a distance that has steadily been diminishing the last 24 hours. The wind is strong, much of the time hitting a stiff gale, and the swells out here are high. Both Thomas and I have been noticing that disturbing movement with our tummies, feeling strangely unwell. But we’re less seasick now than just a few hours ago. I guess our stomach is slowly getting used to it – and so we can enjoy the way the vessel rides the waves and speeds along, carried by the wind.

This is the same ocean, and in a sense the same waves that Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen sailed with “Windward”, the suitably named vessel of Frederick Jackson that carried them home. It pleases us greatly to have been picked up by a sailing vessel in Franz Joseph Land and return home now, in the same fashion. That feels great!

One of the photographs we sent you shows us paddling the kayaks out to SS “Athene”; the other captures us on board.

We’re eagerly waiting to see how the weather develops, unsure of how the wind may turn. Right now the wind is westerly, and we’re riding her at a sharp angle. So for the time being we are truly making an excellent pace toward evermore southern latitude.

This is Børge again. We’re sailing the open sea! The SS “Athene” picked us up today, and now we are riding a stiff northern gale through three–four metre swells. All our equipment is on board, we’re on board and we are in fine shape.

It was a great moment when we saw the sailboat, skipper Thorleif Thorleifsson and his crew – and finally got to leave Franz Joseph Land after spending three weeks camped at Cape Flora. It’s really nice to finally be on the move again! The skipper is charting a course for Murmansk.

Captain Thorleif Thorleifsson is in full control!

Yeah, this is a message from Thorleif Thorleifsson on the SS “Athene”. We’re heading towards Franz Joseph Land to pick up Børge Ousland and Thomas Ulrich. They’re waiting for us on the beach at Cape Flora.

The Barents Sea is showing her most inhospitable side at the moment. We’re approaching 80 degrees latitude but are “being hit hard in the face”, as they say, by stiff gales. As the waves are tossing us about, we’re tacking back and forth to make as much progress as we can against this headwind. No opportunity for sleep on this watch – we feel like ping-pong balls in a washing machine. We did have a nice dinner yesterday, though, pork chops stewed with cabbage and potatoes. Not bad!

We just spoke to the two boys on the beach. They’re down to their last two metres of toilet paper – and obviously longing for a bit more comfort. And we can offer that on board. Even though the weather is a bit rough, we’re in fine shape. Due to the wind, I expect we’ll be tacking until the morning; if you relax under these kinds of conditions, you quickly lose whatever headway you’ve made. But I expect we’ll be able to pick up those Arctic adventurers in the course of the day.

Well, this is “Athene” signing off. I’ll call again when we approach Børge and Thomas.

The calendar shows the 11th of August and we are still here at Cape Flora. We’re getting a bit eager to move on, frankly. I’m sure we’ve taken every walk there is here, most of them more than once, since arriving here on 24th of July. The boat was scheduled to pick us up yesterday, but the Barents Sea is experiencing a bout of bad weather, so they’re struggling against rough seas and a nasty wind.

We just talked to the skipper, Thorleif Thorleifsson, and he’s clinging to the wheel, steering the rudder as best he can. They certainly won’t be here before tomorrow evening. I’ve asked him to offer his reports from the “Athene” – that’s the boat that is picking us up. Thomas and I are all packed and ready.

Not much is happening here. Yes, well, except for two polar bears that came to visit us again, a mother and her cub. They’re finally keeping a respectful distance now, up the hillside three or four hundred metres away. I suppose we’ve reached a sort of truce, an understanding of sorts. We’ll stay down here if they stay up there. At least that’s where they’ve been all day, lying there and relaxing, no doubt hoping that a young razorbill will wander within their reach. The bears are very hungry – but so far their presence has not posed a problem for us.

We’re glad the boat is finally coming tomorrow, because we’re down to just a few squares of toilet paper. Thomas and I brought four rolls for this expedition. Every item of equipment has to be planned to keep the weight down, and even such things carefully rationed. Today it’s 100 days since we departed from the North Pole. We’re crossing our fingers that Thorleif Thorleifsson will sail into the bay here tomorrow. Then we’ll paddle the kayaks out, board the boat safely, and be on our way home.

We shall see what happens. With a bit of luck my next report will be from the cabin of the SS “Athene”.

Today is the 9th of August, and I just talked to the skipper of the sailboat that is on its way to carry us home. The boat left Norway a few days ago, but is struggling with an unkind wind. The forecast is northerly gales, so Thorleif Thorleifsson expects they’ll be at least a day delayed.

We will just have to be patient – we can muster enough of that and have plenty of excellent provisions left from the icebreaker that called at Cape Flora with their tourists. We’re not suffering for lack of anything, although we are eager to be homeward bound.

This last day has been plenty exciting. Last night two bears came to visit us, a mother and her cub, which must have been about a year and a half old. This island is probably not the best place for them to be, there are no ice floes here – it’s all melted. In years past there used to be miles and miles of pack ice around the cape here, and in Nansen’s time these were excellent hunting grounds for the polar bears. Now it’s just open water and they would have to swim for days to reach the ice floes.

In other words, the bears are very hungry, trying their best to catch a few birds, including the young seagulls that were sitting on that rock over there.

They were very excited to discover our campsite – the smell of food at last! Which I’m sure included two of us. They triggered first one tripwire, then another, firing two of our signal flares. Now we only have one left. That’s no crisis, really, because we’ll always manage to rig up some kind of alarm to wake us up if the get too close to the tent.

The bears were hungry enough to brave a return, and that called for more drastic measures. We brought forth the pepper spray, fired our gun into the air, and ran after shouting. When we finally frightened them off, they took the hint and stayed away. Haven’t seen them since.

You see, Cape Flora is not a dull place. There’s a lively fauna here. Walrus are swimming right off shore, and we have also seen these poor young razorbills that race toward the sea – they’re more popular than they care for, and not all of them can fly yet. So the Arctic foxes do catch a few delectable tidbits. This must be one of their best seasons of the year.

We are still here, too, waiting for our transport home.

It’s the 7th of August today, and we feel compelled to share our report after a very special and exciting day. Icebreaker Yamal returned after its second cruise up to the North Pole, and cast anchor off Cape Flora. Thick fog prevented the helicopters from flying tourists for an onshore excursion. Instead, we were brought out to MS “Yamal”.

They came in a zodiac to pick us up, but the breakers prevented the RIB from getting too close to the shore. So Thomas and I donned our drysuits and swam to meet them. On board the vessel a wonder of wonders awaited us: a shower! You have no idea how great it feels to enjoy your first hot shower in more than three months. Especially when you can clean your pores with a good sweat in the sauna afterwards. The icebreaker even had a swimming pool on board, filled with nicely tempered seawater. We must have spent a half hour at least just in the shower, letting the hot water wash away months of grime, lathering repeatedly with soap and shampoo. An indescribable experience!

Nice and clean, we were escorted into their cinema, and showed our appreciation by holding a little lecture about our expedition, providing the background history of Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen’s strenuous Arctic expedition 110 years ago, and telling the passengers of our own adventures – from our start at the North Pole to Cape Flora, the southernmost reach of Franz Joseph Land.

The tourists on board had come from all over the world for their adventure, and they expressed great interest and voiced gratitude. Perhaps it’s not every day that meet savages like us, who just appear from out of the middle of nowhere, and who even insist on returning to their own tents to sleep as the evening approaches. After a few hours we were speeding away in the zodiac, donned our drysuits once again, and savoured the cool swim back to Cape Flora.

They did not allow us to return empty-handed, but gave us two bags filled to the brim with all sorts of goodies: biscuits and chocolate, spaghetti and bacon, and much more. We attached ourselves to the bags by rope, and pulled them along as we swam through the breakers and to the shore.

MS “Yamal” is gone now. We’re once again alone in our tent – but I notice we smell better. At the moment we are preparing a feast of spaghetti with bacon. Thomas and I can’t quite agree on what we’re having for dessert; there are just too many choices. They filled up our provisions.

Later this evening I’ll be sending you some photographs from an unexpectedly enjoyable day.

Viktor Boyarski and our Arctic explorers.

It’s the 6th of August and here is another report. The time for our departure is approaching. We’re both doing fine, following our daily routine where we each get to take a long walk every other day. As I mentioned earlier, one of us has to stay and guard the campsite, otherwise the bears would wreak havoc. We’re still finding lots of fascinating things: fossils, petrified wood, antlers from reindeer that are long since gone from Franz Joseph Land.

Today it was my turn to go hiking. Our greatest discovery so far is that Northbrook is actually not an island. It’s two islands, and these are separated by a sound that is up to a kilometre wide, narrowing to a gap of 250 metres. When we arrived here, we could ski across – but now the ice is gone, there’s just open water, and walrus are swimming through that sound. This is a dramatic consequence of global warming. A hundred years ago it was a lot colder than today. The glacier stretched all the way across the sound; for even on the newest modern maps, Northbrook is drawn as a single island. Recently, however, the glacier has retreated enough to unveil the sound.

Well, at least we’re true explorers now.

It’s obvious there is a lot less ice today than in years past. If you read the old expedition logues and accounts of the explorers who came before us, such as Frederick Jackson and Fridtjof Nansen, they make it clear that it was often impossible to reach this area by boat. Now there’s just open sea beyond Cape Flora, a few icebergs, but there are no ice floes to be seen anywhere. The enormous change is due to global warming, and rising temperatures makes themselves felt more up here than other places, even the Antarctic.

This is going to have very significant consequences for animal life in the Arctic. Many animals, not just mammals, are dependent on the drifting ice floes for their food – and when the ice retreats, it has dire consequences for their ability to survive. In the next few decades I suspect we’ll see immense repercussions. After all, a huge portion of the food chains production in these seas occurs under the ice.

Tomorrow we may be paid a new visit by an icebreaker, and Viktor Boyarski will be on board.

This sound separates the two islands of Nortbrook.

Incredible things have happened here at Cape Flora! So we’d better give you a report today as well, Wednesday 1st of August.

While we were eating dinner in our tent around 8pm last night, we suddenly heard a strange. It was mechanical, and Thomas went outside to check what it was.

“Børge, there’s a large ship out here!”

As soon as I came out, I saw it myself – a large icebreaker full of tourists. They were on their way south after an excursion to the North Pole, and had decided to visit Cape Flora. Soon there was a helicopter in the air, flying shuttle between the ship and this southwestern promontory of Northbrook Island. I must confess that neither of us expected that American tourists would be the first human beings we would see after three months out in the ice.

There were a hundred tourists here outside our tents. They bombarded us with questions and snapshots and everything that’s obligatory when tourists try to preserve two curiosities for posterity – for curiosities is what we had become. Naturally they were astonished to see a pitched tent with two kayaks outside here on Cape Flora. And they wondered how in the world we had gotten here.

So did representatives of the Russian shipping company, who checked our papers thoroughly. Fortunately, everything was in order. There was not a moment of peace during the two hours they were here, but we gladly answered all their questions. It was lots of fun; it’s not every day you meet people up here.

Before they left, they stuck cigars in our mouth and a bottle vodka in our hand. And they gave us a load of fruit and bread. There is red wine, and coffee and cheese, egg and flour and lots more. We’re going to make pancakes. But idiots that we were, Thomas and I totally forgot to ask for the most important thing of all …

Something to read! We’ve read every book we have at least twice. And then when there’s a floating library less than a kilometre offshore, we forget to ask ’em kindly for a few magazines and a book or two. That would have given us something new to rest our eyes on in the evening.

Well, we are very grateful for what we do have. We’re savouring the taste of melon and look forward with glee to eating fresh vegetables again. And I guess I’ll have to learn German in order not to have to read the same paragraphs over and over. The language lessons should be easier, since I already know the contents – the diaries of Fridtjof Nansen.

It’s the 30th of July and we though we’d send you a new report. Today is also Day 90, so Thomas and I have now been out in the Arctic wilderness for three months. Today it’s my turn to stay at home – by the tents. Thomas is out exploring and I expect he’ll be gone all day. We have to alternate watches; because of the polar bears we can’t leave our camp unprotected. During the time we’ve been at Cape Flora, two bears have visited us. And one of them was very aggressive and difficult to get rid of. It trigged four of our alarm flares, so we only have four left. First he triggered flares around our camp, and we had to scare him away by firing our revolver. But after retreating, he expressed far too much interest in our kayaks and set off an alarm flare down there. Now we have carried the kayaks up to our tents and gathered all our belongings here.

Cape Flora is a magnificent place and there is so much to explore. There are lots of old bones here, from whales and walrus, seals and polar bears. The other day we found a four metre long jawbone of a whale! That must have been one hefty creature when it swam the seas.

We have also set up a training apparatus of sorts. We made it from driftwood and an old iron bar that we found over by Jackson’s cabin. Each day now we’re training the muscles of our torso and arms. Our leg muscles, on the other hand, got plenty of exercise during the last three months. Activity is important; we can’t just lie flat on our backs while we’re waiting for the boat home.

I was finally able to put to use a tine bar of soap that I brought from Norway. It was a bit of a cat wash, really, but I really do feel freshened up after not washing my body these last three months. That’s actually not much of a problem, and I think it’s good for the skin, which regulates itself. On the other hand, our clothes lose their insulating ability when they get too dirty and grimy. So we have also been doing laundry in a kettle that we found and brought from Tikhaya Bay.

The weather is excellent, and it’s expected to keep the rest of the week. It’s sunny now, +3˚C and a slight wind, but you can really feel the warmth of the sun.