Victory Day

We have had the rise in water we hoped for and yesterday, Victory Day in Russia, the river started to disgorge the ice out into the White Sea.

Hugh setting up a time lapse camera over the river

Our Russian friends celebrated their National holiday while we had a productive day putting the last touches to the camp and preparing equipment for the Middle Camp which we will fly up to later this morning.

We now have a boat in the water which will make life a great deal easier and we can start ferrying more kit down from the village.

Watching the ice going to the White Sea

I will fly up to Middle Camp in an hour or two with Hugh and Jemima (manager and cook) who were there last year and are much looking forward to welcoming their first guests on 12 May. We will try and get some photos for tomorrow’s blog. I saw the camp's head guide, Misha, in the village a couple of days ago and he reported all was well, I think we have the same team of guides but will find out exactly how things are when we get there.

Kate, Jemima and Tiffy sorting out the medical boxes

No chance to fish yesterday but the river looks good today; we expect it to continue to rise over the next few days and it might warm up a bit but I would think that we will start on 12 May with a water temperature of around 1⁰C – 2⁰C.

The river at Lower Camp this morning

A bit of a brief blog today – tomorrow I will give you a full update on how Middle Varzuga looks.

Christopher Robinson