Blog Archive

Monday 14 August 2017

The Geenland Weather Gods

The Geenland Weather Gods



The Greenland weather gods must have read with interest our last blog which lamented the fog and the absence of sunshine. For this morning, whilst still anchored in the lovely Ravns Storo, shafts of sunlight burned off the mist and we found ourselves, once again, in picture perfect Greenland.


We had been tired by the concentration needed by day to navigate Greenland's inshore leads and by the nightly visits of curious icebergs. We needed a good sleep. So there was much relief when we entered, in late evening, the ice free fjord of Ravns Storo. The anchor took hold on the first attempt and we knew we could relax and sleep.

We had declared Monday morning a time for recuperation thus the late breakfast allowed time for the fog to recede and reveal our surroundings. Ashore we wandered around the rocky bluffs padded with rich lichens, mosses and exquisite wild flowers. This had been a Faroese fishing station abandoned before 1983 and everywhere there were the ruined remnants of the past.



Bleached and battered by sun, wind and ice the wooden carcasses of their huts, boats and sheds were all along the shore. A rusting davit on a makeshift quay, iron cooking ranges and an elderly diesel engine. All this paraphernalia was testimony to the forces that drove those fishermen, not so long ago, to scratch an existence 1800miles from home on the west coast of Greenland. Why they came and why they left is not recorded. We could only muse about their lives and the hardships they encountered. 




Back on Shimshal the sun was high in the sky and, after lunch, we motored out of the bay on smooth, windless seas bound for Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and our next destination.



As soon as we cleared the harbour our old friend the fog was back with us but the sun was never far away and we were dry and warm in the cockpit. We settled ourselves down for the 94 mile overnight passage north to Nuuk.