GREENLAND VOYAGE
never seen a black guy before, and who could not resist
trying to have their photos taken with him, with or
without his compliance. The villages we visited varied in
size from 100 people or less, up to a few thousand, but
they were all equally isolated. The longest road in
Greenland is only 14 miles, so the only way to get from
place to place is by boat, or occasionally by air. Few
people have vessels capable of the distances involved, so
the lifeline to the outside world is the ferry that plies
the coast twice a week. Wherever it arrives, the whole
town comes to see who is coming and going, and kids
come to watch the show and play football on the dock.
Tourists are rare, and although we saw a couple of
other yachts, the only other wooden boats we came
across were old fi shing vessels, with a layer of sheet
metal covering the hull below the waterline and a
harpoon on the bow. The fi shermen were intrigued by
our varnish and bowsprit, and often shared with us some
of their catch. Once we were given a crate of live snow
crabs. The effort-to-reward ratio could have been better,
but they tasted pretty good.
We found that some of the narrow passages in the
fjords have considerable tidal current. It was manageable
enough until the fog dropped and the wind picked up,
and then the threat of stray icebergs became quite
worrying. Whilst dealing with these navigational
challenges and looking after our guests, we were also
well occupied fi xing the various things that broke along
the way. The forward heads, for instance, blocked so
many times that we dread to use it to this day.At last we arrived in Disko Bay, which not only has a
brilliant name, but is also home to the most productive
glacier in the northern hemisphere. The whole area is full
of bergs of every conceivable shape and size. We came
across enormous tower blocks, stationary spaceships,
bizarre statues, forests of spikes, and a wide variety of
real and fi ctional animals, and we slowly wound our
way between them all.
In Illulisat, right next to the actual glacier, we played
football with the local kids, broke another inadequately
built fuel pontoon, and swapped an old dinghy for
several enormous red fi sh. Then we visited Disko island
itself, navigating around numerous rocks and bergs to
squeeze into the mouth of the harbour at Qeqertarsuaq
(previously known as Gødhavn, for those who are not
accustomed to the beautiful but incomprehensible
Greenlandic language). Here we learned a little more
about Greenlandic tradition and folklore, including the
best way to kill a polar bear, which involves pretending
to be dead until it puts your head in its mouth, and then
jumping up and killing it with a tiny little knife.
We climbed a mountain to reach the ice cap and hired
dog sled drivers to take us further up. The huskies, the
sleds, the snow, the ice, the view of the icebergs out to
sea – we were a little bit awestruck. Jake and I got our
frisbee out and fl ung it around on the ice-cap, perhaps to
have something normal to relate to. In the evening we
unpacked a disco ball (on Disko Island!) that we had
shipped specially all the way from Antigua, only to
realise it never gets dark enough to use it so far north.Above: Collecting
ice for evening
drinks
Inset: Leo
Goolden
exploring by RIB,
with Sincerity
behind
Below: Taking
soundings in
part-surveyed
watersAwardsIN ASSOCIATION WITH