We are anchored outside Barrow now. Only a few nautical miles away. The first sighting of the main land was weird. Civilisation. Structures, even cars can be spotted over there. I had not imagined how odd it would be.



Another peculiarity I had not expected daunted on me heavily this morning. Today we had people from ashore coming on board, already in time for breakfast. They are coming out over the day, but leaving in the evening. There are not beds to fit more people, and there is only a certain number of people allowed on the ship of course – with life boats and security reasons. Some people have a very good reason for a longer chat about things on board and need to hand over to people who will work with the same equipment on the second part of the expedition (leg 2). To maximize this they arrived today and will be early tomorrow, while the people who hand over are leaving on the later boat trips.

As I left my packed bags and the nicely smelling cabin that passed cleaning inspection yesterday I walked down the stairs this morning to get to breakfast, I suddenly met a person I did not recognize. The instant feeling was, “intruder”. You are not part of my group. I was very surprised by my feeling. Of course I said hello and went on getting breakfast as usual, but it felt odd to have that reaction to a new face. There were plenty new people in the mess and I sat down with a couple of new faces too, and went on feeling odd about it. They were of course very nice, and I expect nothing else, but again – the group feeling that I had been part of during the expedition was more strongly rooted than I knew.

The boat “Full Swing” will be our rotation vessel tomorrow. It will be four trips bringing and leaving people. After breakfast we will start getting the luggage ashore, but we will have to wait to leave a bit. As soon as we have the immigration officer (or other formal title he/she actually has) in place in Barrow we can start going ashore. I am on the first boat leaving.

We also refuelled today. 852 cubic meters of diesel. Quite some fuel. Took a few hours, and was done just after nine pm local time. Food came in too on the small boat, and more will come tomorrow.

There was a great meet up in the sauna yesterday. I think most people were seeing this as the last night, since we did not know if we were rotating today or not. During the whole trip I have not seen that many people in there. Some even had to wait for others to get out. It was nice to chat and conclude on the trip. What are you doing when you get back? How did you enjoy it? Would you do it again? These are typical questions I have gotten from several during the trip. And yes – I would do it again. I want to go again. Some people laughed and said, would you go on the second leg too? I actually believe I would. Even though I now start to feel comfortable with going home. Comfortable with the thoughts of my normal life. I expect though that it might not take too long before I feel right back to the routines. However – it might take little longer to adapt and to chase the exhaustion away.

Tonight there was many “lasts”. The last sauna for example. Later a gathering in the mingle area. Everyone really aware of the last night atmosphere. Also – some people sentimental with NOT leaving. We have some that will stay on board. They are in a right limbo now – just waiting for the long rotation to be over, getting used to the thought of us leaving, and to see who is arriving. Start to gather a new atmosphere on board. Who are the newcomers?

Tomorrow after breakfast we will gather all the baggage out on the port side, and ourselves nearby to wait for the first boat. I am ready to leave.