I’m not on the boat yet, but here’s from the skipper’s log for the last week. Sounds pretty good!

(Monday) Aug 5

We’re anchored far up Edaloh Inlet on the west end of Salisbury Island at the west end of Hudson Strait. We have no chart for this place (It’s almost as if : “no one goes there; why should we provide charts!?”). Our plotters are off by half a mile in longitude. We had thick fog in the approach. A lee shore, two knots of foul current, and twenty five knots over the transom. On the other hand radar is good, and, of all things, the government Sailing Directions are excellent; so we chanced an inside passage of islands off the larger island and never saw less than three hundred feet under the keel. Once inside the fog lifted to reveal a cloudless sky and sparkling solid rock each side of us broken with swaths of green in places and the occasional sandy beach. Edaloh Inlet is a three mile fjord slotted into the rock at the end of this inside passage. Our only companions here are numerous eiders and glaucous gulls along with guillemots and a raven or two. No bears yet, and no walrus, both reportedly numerous here in the past.

To get here, we enjoyed a fifty mile sail southwest from Cape Dorset where we had spent two days and three nights, having arrived ahead of a rainy gale at 23:00 on Friday evening, at which time we were greeted by Jimmy Manning and his family – Jimmy is Jeannie Padluq’s  brother (from Kimmirut – remember?), who took us in tow the next day with a steel grip which we only excaped this morning. The “grip” afforded us fuel, carvings, dinner, showers, a tour of ancient Inuit sites on Mallik Island opposite the community, a new outboard for the dinghy (it was time!), and intense companionship and chaperone-manship. In return, he got the old outboard, got his wi-fi router set up by Paul, got several first editions provided by Peter, and we had the family to dinner aboard ELSKOV last evening. All this was a pittance compared to our windfall at Jimmy’s hand. He even got me three minutes to greet the community on Cape Dorset Radio!

Cape Dorset is well known as an arts center, and tourists are well known buyers of Inuit art. Every person we met had a knapsack full of carvings to sell – some of it exceptional. We did our best to support the community, but there is a limit. The place is thriving, albeit heavily subsidized as a community. People are open, friendly and generous, with apparently a strong positive self-image. And very interested in our boat. The last sailboat in the harbor was fifteen years ago, or so they said.

From here we go the short distance over to neighboring Nottingham Island, thence by week’s end down to the Nunavik shore at Charles Island and Cap de Nouvelle-France. Wildlife remains elusive and illusive, but we are hopeful.

Tuesday (Aug 6)
Crystal clear quiet morning. Warm in the cockpit.

Very nice hike up to the rocky escarpment above the anchorage (Edaloh Inlet) – gravel beach, muskeag drainage leading up to a small lake in the saddle above; then crumbly fragile rock on the ridge overlooking ELSKOV. Combination of pink quartz, pink granite, some iron-rich sedimentary rock — willow, purple saxifrage, arctic wintergreen, cotton grass. Goose droppings, a few bones on the beach, and some bird remains higher up represented our only wildlife sitings.

Later Tuesday (Aug 8):
We are somewhere in the vivinity of Port du Boucherville on the southeast corner of Nottingham Island (“somewhere” because we have no chart, but only the imprecise description in the government’s Sailing Directions). It’s a peaceful evening, and we feel comfortable anchored in 24′ in an open bay with a small and friendly roll.

Wednesday (Aug 7)
Another “Spahklah” here on Nottingham Island. Lovely walk ashore above the broad     basin to the west and south of our anchor spot (this basin is the “proper” anchorage we think, though we’ve not found the “proper” way in). Green mosses and willows in     the muskeag drainages. Black lichen over all the rock – pink granite and gray sandstones. Nice sitz bath in an ideal small tarne. Quiet exept for a few geese and raven calls, and the sound of surf on the outer ledges.

Thursday (Aug 8)
01:00: (We are bound south and east to Charles Island over night) New day beginning on the Hudson Strait. Northern lights over the starboard quarter. A small breeze filling in. All sail set over a smooth sea; engine on low RPM’s.

03:00: Sun coming slowly up lighting up Charles Island.

06:00: Now anchored in Charles Inlet in 50′. Bottom here appears very level coming up most gradually.

12:30: Underway again for Foul Bay, 47 miles further south and east. Walk ashore on both shores of Charles Inlet revealed a remarkable landscape dominated on a macro basis by a “helmet’ of rock, both granitic and sedimentary, stretching as far as the eye could see, but broken on a micro scale by small tarnes incorporating the most lavish growth of algae and plants – some almost irridescently green. On the southern barrier island we came upon a pair of nesting red throated loons, upsetting them only temporarily we hope. Best wildlife of the cruise to date.

20:00: We’ve come to a wide open cove in the south of Foul Bay. Entered over a two fathom bar, the broad basin inside provides 8 fathoms of sticky holding. Caribou are grazing all around in the evening sun. A broad valley opens into the distant south — all quite verdant looking.

Friday (Aug 9)
Another bright clear calm day (four in a row!).

Walk ashore revealed old stone tent rings, tamer than expected caribou, and a larger landscape than can possibly be imagined.

12:30: Underway for Douglas Harbour to see about a waterfall to fill our tanks.

Thus continues our happy lot here in Hudson Strait on August 9th, 2013.

Finley Perry (Skipper of the Elskov)