In the afternoon, I decided to go for a walk. Now because of the risk of bears I carried the shotgun pretty well wherever I went. The gun carried best upside down.
So I gathered together what I needed, Gun, spare slugs, binoculars, camera and lenses and a bite to eat. I hadn't gone very far when I came to a smoothly sloping dry slab of rock. I stepped onto it and whoops! I slipped and fell over. Even at 58 years I still bounce pretty well when I fall and I was soon upright again. However, this time it appeared I had done a little more damage than usual.
When I fell the sighting rib of the shotgun squashed my left index finger between the rock and the gun. It simply popped the flesh out of the finger. I was very impressed when I looked at it but thought that it might be wise to take some strong pain killers straight away before the pain kicked in.
Back at the hut I was still impressed so I took some photos before bandaging it up. In the end, it simply went numb and never really hurt. But I realised that I should go back to Kuummiut to get it looked at by a medical person.
I have posted a pic here small size, your choice if you want to see it bigger, just click on it :-)
Because of the tidal times, it wasn't going to be possible to head back to Kuummiut first thing in the morning, the tide wouldn't be high enough until mid afternoon so I thought I would go for a paddle up the Ikateq Fjord to do some exploring while I waited. It was a beautiful calm morning with the sun starting to break through. First I paddled the 2 kilometres across to the far side of the fjord and then started heading north. After a while, I saw a pod of 30 or 40 seals a few hundred metres away, many heads sticking up out of the water. A little further on, I spotted a black rounded/rectangular shape in the water about 40 or 50 metres away. I couldn't make out what it was but when I saw it moving towards me, leaving a gentle wake I decided there was a possibility that it could be a nose attached to 4 rather large legs! I exited stage right at a fair rate until I felt that the danger had passed. Continuing north I met a French yacht moored off the abandoned army base at Ikateq. Some of the passengers and the skipper had landed and I had a brief chat with them. The skipper casually mentioned that there had been 3 bears near the Blue Hut 2 weeks previously. I paddled a little further north amongst some beautiful icebergs then turned south again to return to the hut to pack up.
I arrived in Kuummiut mid afternoon, searched out the local nurse and had the finger disinfected and bandaged up.
I thought it would be wise to give it a day's rest so stayed in Kuummiut a further day and went for a walk in the hills.
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