09 Aug 2018

Landing at the Edge of the Eurasian Continent

We spent a morning visiting Lavrentiya - a village that serves as an administrative centre for Chukotka.  We were welcomed with smiling faces by the locals and enjoyed a Museum visit with local Chukchi artefacts as well as a wide selection of traditional food gathered from tundra and hunted in the local environ.  The visit was topped off by an energetic game of handball which local children, adults and guests all joined in on, followed by a traditional performance of song and dance performed by the acclaimed local group 'White Sails'. 

After reboarding Spirit of Enderby we started to make way to Cape Dezhnev, not before a stop to enjoy the gray whales which were around the bay as we left Lavrentiya.  We reached Cape Dezhnev and made a late afternoon landing in near perfect conditions - not a breath of wind and mild temperatures.   We wandered through the derelict subterranean house remains to the monument to Seymon Dezhnev, marking the furtherst Northeastern point of Eurasia.  We were all chuffed with what we had been able to achieve today, and even got sighting of Uelen village as we rounded the Cape and made way for Kolyuchin Island for tomorrow.