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Thursday 10 August 2017

Going West to Nanortliq

Going West to Nanortliq



By first light the anchor was up and we motored west into a misty, wet morning. There was ice everywhere but it wasn't the big bergs that were the problem. More so their decaying remnants that littered the fjord with bergy bits and brash. Every now and then we failed to avoid one and it thudded into the bow with a very solid thump. One of the first to do so timed it's impact perfectly for when Heather sat on the forward toilet. A chilling surprise for her I am assured!



Steadily we picked our way along the fjord wiggling between icy obstacles as we went. Above us, swathed in cloud, were the brooding granite walls reaching up to imagined tops. Glaciers dribbled down from the ice cap calving more bergs to frustrate our progress.

At the narrows the tide was against us but we pushed on through, wary of the eddies that threatened to set us onto the passing icebergs.

After 30 miles we took a dog leg around an island and the passage became wider. Though still plenty of ice there were fewer of those troublesome bergy bits and growlers. Smooth granite cliffs reared up all around us to lofty summits daubed in mist. An extraordinary voyage through a pristine wilderness landscape freshly chiselled by ice out of rock.

Fifty miles into the fjord system we passed our first habitation, Appilattoq, a tiny hamlet of red houses and a church perched on granite beneath an immense granite cliff. A rugged aluminium open speedboat, driven by a fisherman in a survival suit, flew past us across the top of the waves and dodged into a rocky cleft that concealed the harbour. Hardy souls scratching out an existence sandwiched between mountain and fjord.

Another dog leg littered with ice bergs led us finally out into the open sea and a cold fog engulfed us. We were now in the Davis Strait which is the cold sea that laps the coast of West Greenland. It is renowned for it's fogs so this was a fitting and predictable greeting.

In open water Alchemy spotted us on AIS and called us up. They had anchored the night before just west of the narrows and now were just a hour or two ahead of us. We threaded, by radar, the rocky islets and grounded icebergs that defended the far south west tip of Greenland and followed in Alchemy's wake to Nanortaliq which we entered in fog. We berthed on the container dock a few yards from Alchemy.

Exhilarated and exhausted by a long day of complicated and, at times, tense pilotage amongst ice, rocks and fog we were glad to be tied to a rugged cargo dock. That was until a lump of ice the size of an estate car nudged our stern at frequent intervals throughout the night. A little gentle prodding with our bargain basement ice poles soon saw him off but this was a naturally curious chunk of ice that always found it's way back to take another look.