Built by the Americans during WW2 the Prins Christian Sund Weather Station is a sprawling collection of red, prefabricated buildings perched on the hillside 270 wooden steps up from a concrete jetty. The jetty itself was blocked by icebergs but we found a shallow shelf on which to anchor just north of the leading lines. It took a couple of goes to find a decent holding in amongst the kelp.
It was wet and dull but none of us could resist the temptation to go ashore and explore this lonely outpost. We had not expected it to be manned as the reporting was automated in 2016 so it was a pleasant surprise to be invited in for coffee and biscuits with the Greenlandic contractors that were there for the week. They had recently arrived by helicopter and were obviously keen to meet up with some of the first sailors to make the passage this season.
There was a team of telecom engineers and a guy using a drone to map the whole area. They ushered us into their warm, dry dining room and connected us to their super-fast broadband while feeding us coffee and biscuits. A great welcome back to civilisation after the wilds of East Greenland and the Denmark Strait.
Back on Shimshal icebergs lurked but kept a relatively respectful distance from our anchorage as we settled down for the night comfortable in the knowledge we had safely accomplished a very perilous landfall.