Full Circle

Series: Full Circle
Day: 1
Country/sea: USA
Place: Little Diomede - Alaska
Book page no: 14

Day 1: Little Diomede Island, Bering Strait

Little Diomede, Bering Strait
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Today's Eskimos wear baseball caps.

The Bering Strait is the northern gateway to the Pacific. From here the great ocean swells southwards until it extends 11,000 miles from eastern shore to western shore and covers one-third of the surface of the planet. Many people have explored its islands, or sailed down the Asian or American coasts, but I have never come across anyone who has been full circle, who has followed the countries of the Pacific all the way round. I hope to be back on Little Diomede one year from now. Or however long it takes to circumnavigate the Pacific Rim.

Once I've confided my intentions to the camera I feel better, clearer in my mind. But as the rising wind licks around this bleak and treeless cliff so there rises in me a dawning apprehension of what is to come, of how much there is to do, and how little I will see of my family in the year ahead. I look around the crew and wonder if they are thinking the same thing but they are already packing up the gear, hoisting bags onto shoulders and starting to pick their way through the grassy rocks down towards the village and the sea. We're off.