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Wednesday 2 August 2017

What a day!

What a day!


It started with my watch in the early dawn at 4am. Within an hour we got our first sumptuous views of Greenland 72 miles away to our starboard. Those indescribably subtle pink and purple hues of dawn bathed the jagged white peaks. Range after range springing from the ice cap dripping glaciers to the sea. Later glistening like gold with the rising sun.

Under a blue sky Shimshal powered on at 6 knots. The winds were now too light to sail and we wanted to make our anchorage before dark as we knew, from now on, ice would be our ever present companion.

Big bergs are easy to spot by eye or by radar but, most dangerous for us, are the lurking and menacing growlers. A natural minefield for a yacht such as ours. They conceal most of their considerable mass beneath the waves and only display their presence by poking their heads a few centimetres above the water. They come and go in the troughs and peaks of swells peeping at their prey. To hit one could be disastrous and as they are invisible by night the only safe way to travel is by day in clear weather and smoothish seas.

We had timed our last day to arrive in growler country well before darkness so we pressed on gradually closing the south east coast of Greenland.

Then came whales as we crossed the continental shelf. There were glimpses of distant spouts then the leaping gymnastic dolphins. Wierdly a pod of pilot whales came over to investigate. Six abreast they approached us like the front row of a rugby scrum squeaking as they came. So close together their fins touched as they chattered away in squeaks. 



As the miles ticked away we closed the coast of Greenland not a little anxious about the seriousness and dangers of a landfall on such a rugged, icebound and uninhabited coastline.

A new anxiety began to mount. We were in sunshine with the rugged mountains to our right and fog rolling in from the left. In denser ice territory we posted a watch with a radio at the at the bow for the last 14 miles. Tantalisingly we could see the headland that marked the entrance to the fjord that contained our anchorage just 5 miles ahead but he fog was on it's way.

Numerous growlers bobbed their heads at us along the way and, of course, many glistening, statuesque, ice bergs up to 50m high

Fog, ice, a poorly charted coastline, approaching darkness, uncertainty as to whether we would find a safe haven at all were all separate risks to be assessed and weighed.

Then 15 minutes before we would have been into the fjord the fog caught us. Glasses misted over and condensation instantly soaked the deck and covers. We had been four days at sea and had been desperate to get the anchor down for sleep. Instead, in a conspiracy of adversity we were now fog bound on an ice infested, uninhabited coastline where we knew what charts there were were unreliable. We were the first small vessel of the season to close the coast. Time to stick or twist?

Desire for a restful anchorage won the day. We dropped the speed, tuned the radar and soldiered, probably foolishly, on. We could see blue sky above and kept persuading ourselves that the fog would roll away. Of course it didn't and, it seemed to me, that our desire for rest was drawing us into great danger and so, just 0.75 miles from the entrance we turned east, back out to sea to the safety of open water.

We knew our caution would mean another night at sea drifting with the current and tide until daylight and clear skies could rebalance the risk.