Sweaters,Torches And Charts

Our sweater collection is growing. We were in town running errands and noticed one of the shops had put out a new selection. Krystina went in not thinking she would find anything and ended up falling in love with a simple back and white one. Bringing her woolly count up to four including one that she bought in Svalbard last summer. Frances also started trying them on and ended up buying a beige one. Her sweater count is confidential.  

Another frivolous item that fallowed us home today is a chef's torch. Frances went looking for a propane bottle for her plumbing torch which is used for both repair projects and making crème brûlée. Her quest to find a bottle that would fit a North American torch was unsuccessful. She then went to the hardware store to find a European style torch that would fit the available bottles. One of the women that worked at the store had a feeling that Frances' torch was used for more than just maintenance and once Frances confirmed this. The woman began calling  the propane distributors to see if a bottle could be found. Once they established that neither a bottle, torch or adapter could be obtained, Frances went to the kitchen store. Where she was told they did not have any torches. She started to walk down the street when the woman from the kitchen store came running up to her saying that they did have a crème brûlée torch. We will test it this weekend, after all, we need to make sure it works.

On a more serious note, Ocens the company that provides both our satellite email service and weather downloads, emailed to say that they are adding the Danish ice charts to their weather service after we requested them. We only just started using their weather service this year and realized the ice information available was woefully inadequate. When Frances called to complain, they asked what we wanted them to add and said they would see what they could do. It is nice to be dealing with a small company that has time for their customers and is willing to put in the extra effort.

We also got confirmation from Gerd that he will be joining us for the passage to Greenland. It will be nice having a third set of eyes since we are likely to encounter drift ice during the crossing. He arrives Sunday and will hopefully have the additional charts we need after changing where we plan to go in Greenland.