Friday 12 July 13: A wild day
This was the worst storm of the lot with winds in excess of 40 knots for much of the night and forenoon. Fortunately this time we were observing it from the comfort of an alongside berth in Nuuk. Even so at one point during the morning it was so windy that a mattress was to be seen blowing down the street in town!
As evening approached the winds started to drop, so after supper we disentangled ourselves from the raft of smaller fishing boats tied up outside of us and set sail – destination Disko Bay and a rendezvous with Ian and Jacob who have flown in from UK.
We expect to cross the Arctic Circle sometime tomorrow afternoon and for the two Arctic “first timers” on board we will hold an appropriate “crossing the line” celebration, which might just involve an excuse to break out a tot of something peaty!
Position at 2200 on Fri 12 July: 64 05.9 N, 51 59.1 W. At the outer end of Godthababsfjord, about to head north towards Disko Bay.
Sat 13 July 13: The Polar High – at last!
Clive writes: After almost a whole month of being battered by a long string of depressions, it looks like at last we may be sailing into the influence of the Polar High – a large ridge of high pressure which sits over the northern arctic region and which traditionally brings relatively calm and settled summer weather to these latitudes. As we write this update, we are motoring along with a climbing barometer, clear blue skies, almost no wind, and the spectacular glacier capped mountains of Hamborgerland as a backdrop on our starboard side.
However, we paid a price for our “prompt” departure from Nuuk. Although the worst of the storm had blown itself out by the time we sailed, we were nonetheless rewarded with a rough first 12 hours back at sea and winds which were still gusting up to 30 knots at times. The phenomenal appetites of just 12 hours earlier, when Tom and Peter rediscovered the joys of eating food again, miraculously disappeared the further out from land we got!
We are currently only 70 miles south of the Arctic Circle and although we are not quite yet in the land of the midnight sun, it is quite a few days since we have seen any real darkness at “night”. Terms like “dusk”, “dawn” and “night” are becoming increasingly irrelevant concepts in the world in which now find ourselves. Even things like the time of day and day of the week are starting to lose any real meaning for us – instead we are increasingly quantifying time in units like “how long before I’m next on watch”, “how long before the next storm hits”, and “how much sailing time will it take to get from … to ….” !!
Our storm enforced stop over in Nuuk gave us some much needed rest and the opportunity to drink a couple of glasses of surprisingly good locally brewed ale. We were also extraordinarily lucky to be tied up alongside the German registered sailing yacht “Polaris”. They have been cruising the west coast of Greenland for the past 4 years and were extremely generous in providing us with a wealth of useful tips and information, not to mention acting as an impromptu “tug” with their inflatable dinghy as we extricated ourselves from the raft of smaller boats tied up outside us in Nuuk!! Thanks for everything “Polaris” and good luck as you head back southwards.
With Nuuk now 120 miles behind us, and all on board fully “fired up” up by the many inspiring photographs “Polaris” showed us of what awaits us when we finally reach Upernavik and Ummanaq, we can’t wait to get there!
Sun 14 July 13: Splice the Mainbrace – no more sunsets for a month
Clive writes: The order “Splice the Mainbrace” was sounded at 0645 this morning on board Cosmic Dancer. For those not familiar with this old Royal Navy tradition it’s the signal for all on board to have an additional “tot of rum” in recognition of some special occasion. The special occasion in this case was the crossing of the Arctic Circle, which for 2 of the 4 on board marked their first venture into the Arctic. The bottle of Gosling’s dark rum was broken out, tots were issued and drunk in a variety of different ways – the old navy hand on board chose to have his “neaters” (undiluted), others chose to wash it down in the form of a hot toddy (rum, sugar, lemon and hot water), whilst the only person on board not to owe their allegiance to the Queen was given a special dispensation to drink her tot in the form of a malt whisky! Now that we are north of 66 degrees 33′ and so close to midsummer, the sun will no longer set – at least not until we come back to the UK in a month’s time. Any north-facing cliffs will be best climbed at night when the sun is shining on them.
Tom had an exciting experience on watch yesterday during the tail-end of the storm: in the middle of rolling waves and crashing surf, a big whale decided to surface inches away from the boat, spout and then disappear without a trace, leaving Tom spattered with foul-smelling spray and slightly aghast at the thought of a collision. The seals seemed less than worried and continued to inspect the boat at intervals.
Having crossed the Arctic Circle we are making slow but steady progress up to Disko Bay and Ilulissat where Ian and Jacob are waiting for us. The “slow” part is due to the fact that the wind is now blowing firmly from the north while the north flowing West Greenland current appears to have deserted us and has been replaced by a south flowing counter current of around half a knot. Over the past 12 hours we have tried every trick in the bag to go faster – tacking to windward under sail, motor sailing, and plain motoring – but try as we may it is difficult to get above 3.5 to 4 knots in the right direction. However, we are all learning that Greenland is not a place to be “rushed”. Life here proceeds at its own pace and even simple evolutions like filling the yacht with fuel and water, a task that would normally be accomplished in no more than 15-20 minutes, can as we have already discovered, take up to a whole day to complete.
At present speed we hope to arrive in Ilulissat some time late Monday afternoon/evening and make as quick a turn around as possible before heading north again. If all goes according to plan by the middle of the week we should be at the point where we can swap our rubber sailing boots for rubber climbing shoes, and Peter and Tom their less than luxurious bunks in the main cabin for some even more uncomfortable sleeping conditions on a portaledge – a prospect they appear to be relishing. But that’s perhaps what climbers and offshore sailors have in common – we are all gluttons for punishment!
Into the Arctic Circle, Sun 14 July
Thurs 18 July 13: Is that the Cosmic Dancer? A big thank you to seal hunters.
Tom writes on 18 July: As of 2 days ago, Ian and Jacob had been waiting to be picked up by the Cosmic Dancer for a full week. They’d got various ETAs, all wrong, acquired 100kg of supplies and were camping out behind the town. The tsunami warning signs failed to dissuade them from pushing the floating ice aside and swimming in the Ilulissat icefjord; they found a scrambling peak to wander up, a walk or two, made friends in the Ilulissat discotheque and spent long hours on end sitting by the docks waiting for the Cosmic Dancer, which neither of them had ever seen before.
Ian – ‘Is that the Cosmic Dancer?’
Jacob – ‘No, it’s a different sailing boat’
Two days ago the boat was trying to get across Disko Bay, world-famous for its icebergs, to meet Ian and Jacob in Ilulissat for the latest ETA. I was on watch from 2am to 4am, dodged a few big icebergs and went to sleep for 4 hours in the expectation that we’d be there when I woke up. What wild, irresponsible optimism: while I was asleep, Peter and Angela came up against an impenetrable wall of ice. Huge icebergs with azure-blue mountains on top were linked by dense fields of lumps of ice, any one of them big enough to do serious damage to the boat.
Near Ilulissat, Tues 16 July
Jacob – ‘Is THAT the Cosmic Dancer?!’
Ian – ‘No, that’s a fishing boat…’
Peter and Clive spotted a potential lead, but came up against a dead end to find that the wind had blown the ice in behind them, sealing the way back. We avoided a semi-Shackleton by judicious use of the boathook to push car-sized lumps out of the way, but found ourselves back on the wrong side of the wall. On the plus side, Peter snagged a small iceberg up on deck to put in our orange juice. Then the fog came down, which was better because you couldn’t see the ice ringing the horizon, but also worse for the same reason. Then the fog came down a bit more, and most of the time you could pretend that the ice was all gone, but that was because you couldn’t see further than 25m.
Ian – ‘Is that the Cosmic Dancer?’
Jacob – ‘No, that’s a cargo ship. It’s over 100m long.’
All the icebergs were being blown out of the Ilulissat icefjord just south of the town, so the wall formed a semi-circle right around where we wanted to go. When the fog lifted a bit we tooled from one end right the way to the other to find a way through; no luck. I climbed the mast and stood on a crossbar 18m above the rolling deck to try to spot a lead, but achieved nothing except seasickness. I managed to avoid spewing onto the deck from a great height though – partial success. I’m used to cliffs which don’t sway quite so much!
Jacob – ‘Is this the Cosmic Dancer?’
Ian – ‘No Jacob, that’s a skip full of rotting fish. It’s been sitting next to us for hours.’
Jacob – ‘Is this the Cosmic Dancer?’
Ian – ‘That’s a spork.’
Ian and Jacob then got increasingly desperate sat phone calls from our Iridium set, finishing with the dreaded, ‘We can’t get through. Sorry. We’re headed back to Aasiaat, try to find a way to meet us there somehow.’ We motored the ten hours back to Aasiaat through the pea-soup fog, and collapsed exhausted back where we’d started 30 hours ago.
off Ilulissat, Tues 16 July
Jacob – ‘Why did the Cosmic Dancer cross the road?’
Ian – ‘Why?’
Jacob – ‘There was a strong headwind. Knock knock.’
Ian – ‘Who’s there?’
Jacob – ‘Not the Cosmic Dancer.’
Ian – ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg?’
Jacob – ‘I don’t know, but it definitely wasn’t the Cosmic Dancer.’
I honestly thought the trip had been torpedoed but I hadn’t counted on Jacob, the best hitch-hiker known to man. Barely 4 hours later Ian and Jacob arrived in a seal hunter’s powerboat whose shallow steel hull had crashed through the ice at alarming speeds. Even more alarming had been the seal hunters.
Seal Hunter – ‘When I raise my gun to shoot the seal, you duck!’
Ian – ‘Do I look like a seal?!’
Seal Hunter – ‘DUCK!’ *bang*
Luckily the seal hunters failed to hit anything at all. Finally all together, we faffed about getting the boat ready to head into the wilderness for four weeks and set off late the next day. We’re back on, let’s go climbing!
Ian & Peter stowing supplies, Wed 17 July
Thurs 18 July 13: Heading North again
Having refuelled and taken on water in Aasiaat we set sail shortly before midnight. It was blissfully calm, but with visibility less than 20 metres, once again the radar was working overtime. By 0100 the fog had cleared and we had a wonderfully scenic passage north east across Disko Bay, heading towards the Vaigat, the passage that runs around the north side of Disko Island. This scenic inshore route had been recommended to us by a number of people as one of the “must not miss” things to do in Greenland.
For the first 8 hours of the passage, what little wind there was came from the north, keeping plenty of leads open between the thousands of icebergs that fill this corner of Disko Bay. All was going well until around 0900, just as we were approaching the outer entrance to the Vaigat. In the space of no more than 30 minutes, the drift ice started to compact and the wind freshened from the south, threatening to compact it even further and choke off the channel altogether.
Mindful of the description in the pilot which refers to the Vaigat as “the strait along which many of the icebergs which eventually end up on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland start their journey, and which consequently may not be navigable in some seasons until late July”, we decided that discretion was the order of the day. Rather than run the risk of being trapped between a lee shore and an advancing ice front, we altered course to take ourselves around the south of Disko Island towards the offshore route which is reportedly far less prone to ice.
As we write this, Cosmic Dancer is threading her way back out through the drift ice towards the open sea. It looks like Ian and Jacob might be getting their first taste of offshore sailing conditions a little earlier than we had hoped for. It remains to be seen how quickly their “sea legs” develop, but for the moment appetites are undiminished and impressive amounts of food are being consumed – which is no bad thing given the mountain of food we now have on board!!
Breaking clear of the drift ice in Disko Bay, Thurs 18 July
Oxford Greenland Expedition 2013 