"The Ships"
- featuring SKA 4 -
- a Danish survey boat manned by the Royal Danish Navy -
Incl. - her sister ships, crew and Greenland - - Page 5 -
When we got stuck in the ice for long periods of time and could not go anywhere, we did of course run out of provisions and stores, - with NO supermarkets around -, but fortunately enough, it is impossible to die from hunger in Greenland. The water was simply full of fish, and they were so willing to bite the hook, that it was not even necessary to use bite!
Just throw out the hook, and very often you had a fish right away - - -
On many pictures of SKA boats in this web page you can often see "something" which is not used for navigation hanging in the mast and rigging - - - It is dried fish, - a most delicate snack, and we constantly chewing on a delicious piece of dried fish - - -
Also birds were plentiful, so a hunter could always be sure of shooting something - - -
We lived VERY well onboard, and never missed the supermarket - - -
A funny thing about the wild animals was, that they were not used to see people, and therefore they had not yet learned to be scared of human beings. Therefore we would experience that the polar rabbits and polar birds did not even care to move until you almost stepped on them - - -
In spite of the sheltered bay with the narrow opening,- ice still came in and drifted towards the anchored SKA fleet.
Some of the ice blocks were too big, with too sharp and hard corners, and in order to avoid that it would pack around the boats, we had to push it away to the best of our ability - - - -
Obviously it had caused some concern, that the four SKA boats had "disappeared" from the World for so long time -
But no reason to worry, - we did not suffer and could fish and hunt and had plenty of food! Water was NO problem! Just melt some ice - - -
I think that the name of the Admiral of the Greenland Command was Petersen,- just like me - and when he entered the cabin, I greeted him wearing my underpants - - - :-)
But of course no problems with that! You can easily salute an Admiral wearing underpants - - -
This looks like a hunting trip, - but actually I did NOT go ashore in order to hunt - -
I usually went ashore in order to explore - take photos - and to ticle my fantasy - and to get my curiosity satisfied: What will I find on the orher side of the mountain - - ?????
But when going exploring it made good sense to bring a rifle, because you never knew if you would come across a fat duck or a delicious polar rabbit - - -
And anything that could be eaten were wellcome, when you could not go anywhere because of ice, - and you did not know for how long - - -
End of page 5 - - -
Please continue to page 6 - - -