Another boat trip.

The way the health service is provided to the local area is we have the main hospital here in Upernavik and in each of the settlements there is a house with a local in. If someone is ill / injured they go to that house and the member of staff there makes a quick assessment then contacts us for further help. We may prescribe medication from their local supply or request that the patient comes here either by boat, or if it is serious we will send the helicopter.

As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, every once in a while the hospital staff need to go visit the health centres in the surrounding settlements. The houses are owned by the hospital so any maintenance issues need to be looked at and a general assessment is undertaken the staff need to be seen and some patients will be seen, but patient's aren't the main reason for the visits.

Rigmor (my host) arranged for this trip to happen during my stay so I can come along. I was told this on my arrival so I knew if nothing else I would get off of this 2 mile island for a week.

The plan is to leave here tomorrow evening and steam north for around 250km to the most northern point of the trip and then work our way back south down to 85km south of Upernavik before returning to our usual jobs. I will be taking my SPOT with me so you can see where I am as I'm not sure if I will have any other communication on the trip.

I've been told that I will have plenty of opportunity to go walking so I will be packing most of my kit for hiking and photography (fingers crossed there is plenty of space on board). We hope to be fishing on the trip too.

One thing that has worked out extremely well is that Rigmor's husband is on holiday over here at the moment. His usual job is a chef in the off shore oil industry, so he's coming along to cook for us and from the food I've had so far I expect it to be good, and he is used to ship's galleys so I don't expect it to be a hindrance to the standards he produces.

We will be hot on the tail of Snow Dragon 2, Bagheera, and Salty, but I think they will be too far ahead of us to be able to catch up to repeat the events of Tuesday evening.