“Today we were unable to reach our daily goal of covering a scheduled amount of kilometers. As soon as we left the camp, we came to a large polynya. It’s spread out from north to south, and we didn’t have any other choice but to move along its edge. A few times we saw a seal. We knew right away that it can only mean that our meeting with a polar bear is guaranteed. Sure enough, a few hours into our morning, Victor spotted fresh bear tracks, and then about an hour later we saw the actual bear. As soon as the dogs sensed the bear they started to pull towards him and we had to pull them back; it would take him mere minutes to turn them into ribbons. To chase him away we fired our shotgun in the air and he got spooked, but after a short while came back again. His pursuit and our chasing him away continued the entire day. The smart beast knew to come against the wind so the dogs wouldn’t be able to whiff his scent. He turned out to be quite a determined big fella; obviously he hasn’t met too many humans. We must ask for more shells for our 12 mm caliber shotgun; otherwise, we won’t have enough ammo if the bear continues to follow us. Our night is going to be stressful. We set up camp with the dogs on both sides of the tent: six on the left and six on the right. Today we ran only 21 km even though the route was pretty good. Wasted too much time dealing with the bear. Our coordinates are 87@@apos@@ 20@@apos@@@@apos@@ North Latitude and 56@@apos@@ 56@@apos@@@@apos@@ West Longitude.”
Expedition is using satellite tracking beacons – Yellow Brick. Current position is here: http://yb.tl/konyukhov