An email pinged in as we slipped our anchor on another picture perfect Greenland day. At 5am the sun was already high and the volcanic hills around us were glowing orange in the morning light. Our plan had been to sail 40 more miles of the Forbidden Coast to find that elusive, gloopy, gloriously anchor sucking mud around Kap Barclay. Anchoring nirvana.
Sadly we will never check out Barclay's bottom as, when I opened my email, we were greeted by the news that storm clouds were brewing over Iceland and that we should depart sooner rather than later if we're to avoid a stiff passage south. Faces dropped. Surely we could squeeze just one more hop along the coast and maybe find that polar bear that we had all wanted so much to see?
A flurry of forecasts followed which did indeed suggests winds to gale force if we stayed another day. The decision was made and we dialled in a new heading leaving in our wake the jagged mountainous coast of Greenland. Almost totally free from snow those brown mountains were sandwiched between a cloudless sky and a blue sea broken only by an occasional, lonesome iceberg drifting on the polar current.
With our farewells to Greenland said we hope to have a comfortable crossing of the Denmark Strait followed by yet more adventures on Iceland's rugged west coast. A coast that is becoming familiar to Sally and me as this will be our third time along it.
Sally and Simon left Scotland in 2015 on board Shimshal to begin a slow circumnavigation taking in various high latitude destinations. After 3 seasons in Greenland we sailed south to Lewisporte in northern Newfoundland. In 2019 we cruised the Canadian Maritimes. In 2022 & 23 we cruised via New England, Chesapeake, Florida, Cuba, Cayman, Providencia to Bocas del Toro. In late 2023 we transited the Panama Canal in readiness of a Pacific crossing in 2024.