(written by Nick)

Back at Tasiilaq aka Ammassalik.

Last night we tried to get into Kulusuk harbor, 10 miles to the east. Totally choked with ice. So we came here.

We had a very intense few days in dense ice.

Went up the fjord west of Ammassilak island.

1st night at an abandoned Eskimo village, about 10 houses, most dilapidated. Church - school, graveyard behind, each grave a pile of rock on the granite, marked with painted white cross nothing more.

Moved up into a branching fjord & got within a mile of glaciers. The Greenland ice cap looming over us, a vast heavy striated whiteness spanning the horizon between & behind the nmountain peaks. It seemed crazy to try to anchor in the dense continially moving floes. So we anchored up against a floe in the middle of the fjord. 100 by 75 feet, our own little kingdom. i swam in the morning, then had coffee on the floe in just my boxer shorts until my feet could no longer take it. The sun shining, blue sky, no wind, the barometer stréady, wonderful.

We motored out, several x pushing thru solid blockages of small floes. Sailed across & up the 5 mile wide fjord, a splendid sail with much blue water between giant bergs & no clutter to dodge. Came to a small island a km square, a hunting shack on it. went around to the landward side, anchored, walked ashore. Two stone ruins, about a dozed small hollow cairns containing the bones of the eskimo dead. no crosses so pre Christian (1900), some very old, the cairns collapsed & overlain with slow-growing moss, others with bits of skull, two with nice skulls. One was a child. Such utter remote wilderness - the two stone ruins so well placed to overlook the vastness of the fjord shambolic with bergs, the jagged mts, the ice cap looming over all. Of course to the Eskimo this is his backyard, and the coastline & islands are littered with cairns and the bones of the dead, everywhere.

at this anchorage a wind shift pushed the ice down to us.  A berg moved onto the anchor chain in 30 ft water. Happenmed very fast! We were unable to reterieve the chain, figured this berg wopuld serve as bulwark against any other ice until the next high tide. So it proved, and retrieval on the tide was no problem.

My boat is of steel, a very tough hull. She takes a lot of bashing into the ice, no problem. I am very impressed with her. Splendid to have this, & it makes me so much more comfortable in ice.

tomorrow we set out for ireland. 1100 NM - be about 11 days - 100 miles a day being my average on ocean crossings.

food, fuel, laundry, this blog, then its on a walk I go.

Ben,s photos get better & better - he is really good at this. A discovered talent, I think.

 Sam with his prize cod. He came up with another cod in his mouth that was a meal in itself.

 All the West Fjords reaching out like fingers as we disappear into the Denmark Strait toward Greenland

 You always remember your first berg.

 This iceberg went on like this for miles.

 Sam spottin bergs in the fog, very tedious and anxious work.

 Spooking a sleeping sperm whale.

 Entering the first ice field.

Me and Sam going with the floe.

 Our first big iceberg creeps eerily out of the fog, it was about 200 feet high

 30% coverage, the ice got very thick and the visibility poor. We had to head south to make it out.

 Spotting from the side stay.

 Shroom bergs.

 Fog clears and we get our first sight of Greenland, the jagged black mountains go back in layers like shark's teeth. It looked like another world.

 Teddy at anchor in Kong Oskar Havn

 Sam and I hang out on an iceberg

 Angmagssalik, East Greenland

 Freshly skinned seal

 Junior dogsled team in training

(Written by Nick)

Took 4.5 days to cross the Denmark Strait to Greenland. Little or no wind for the middle half - a damn lot of motoring.

We entered the ice field 3x. By ice field I mean vast regions of concentrated floes & bergs. The Danes (the colonizers of Greenland) call this the stori, the until recently impenetrable ice fields coming down from the polar basin year round. This pattern dramatically changed in the past decade, due to global warming I guess, and small boats like mine can enter a month or two a year. Two locals told me that 5 sailboats come in each year, in August.

Sailing through the ice fields is a totally new experience. Luminous blue & while floes all around as far as one can see. Seals basking on floes or in the sea, a hurtful expression on their faces. Whales rising to the surface. Ice-fog misting the whole, then suddenly rising to show the horizons white with the ice field.  The occasional colossal berg amid the flat floes.

we entered the ice fields, the stori, 3x. At all times the barometer was steady, the sky settled, the wind calm to breezes.

Sailing through the floes is like no other experience in sailing. for me. Total utter concentration, seeking out passages ahead, where to go, where not, passing floes with feet or inches to spare, or knocking off floe edges when I had to squeeze between two. Running over small stuff. A constant vigilance, like downhill slaloming, or racing over boulders. I felt very comfortable with doing this, totally enjoyed it & had total confidence.

We entered the floes 3x. the first time for fun, took half a day to get out. The second time we entered, found it thickening too much, bore off towards lesser concentrations & to the edge of the ice field, followed rthe edge for a long time, then reentered a third time & passed clear througfh to black waters 30 miles off Greenland & clear all the way in. Probably 50 miles in all sailing through the ice fields.

what a great way to sail.

Very dangerous, yes. The barometer & the steady conditions, the knowledge of where the ice field ended (behind me or to one side), and the very strong steel hull of Teddy, made me Ok with doing  this. But a totally new experience. I look forward to discussing the dangers of these conditions with experienced sailors.

We sighted Greenland far far away, when the ice-fog suddenly lifted. A shocking view, an immense & far off sharks mouth of raggedy teeth, up & down the the whole coast & receding far far inland in fading ranks. These mountains steeper & far more jagged than sharks teeth. Rising to 4000-6000 ft. A powerful moment that the 3 of us had long sought. This was my 3rd attempt to sail to Greenland.

This is written at Ammassalik, now known as Tasiilaq. Near the airport of Kulusuk which connects w here by helo.

1500 Eskimos here. I mean Inuit, is that more correct politically? I love looking at  their faces & shapes. Talked with a few, not too many speak English - they tend to be bilingual in Inuit & Danish. There is a calmness, a sparseness of ego, a deep sense of respectful boundaries between people. This compared to the Americans & Irish I have known.

Have swum in the sea & in meltwater streams, delicious.

Love it here!!

Fatigue of shingles over, sciatica mild, looking good.

Ben is on another computer here. The connection is slow - hope he can get in some pics. He got lots of spectacular shots.

(written by Nick)

At Isafjordur town, which has the nicest feel of those I've visited in Iceland. Small yet cosmopolitan, a most positive energy, dramatic cliff-mountains towering on 2 sides, Drangurfjordur the fjord away to the north with the snowy mountain Drangurjokull to one side. Winters here have to be very attractive with clear starry nights, the moon, Aurora Borealis, the glow of the very low midday sun & the prolonged twilights before sunrise & after sunset.

My shingles turned out to be very mild. Flu-ish for a few days, skin rash mild, no eruptions. Still tire easily, and the sciatica persists. I hope to find herbs tomorrow, when the shops open, to deal wih both.

After much thought I modified the itinerary. I need to respect my current lack of stamina.  Also, the sea  ice off Ittoqqortoormiit/Scoresbysund remain rather heavy, per the Danish ice charts available on the Internet. We are dropping both Jan Mayen & Itto. The approaches to Kulusuk, an East Greenland island 370 miles due west of here, has far less sea ice, which makes for a much easier time all around. Kulusuk has a # of Eskimo settlements in the area. Lots of good harbors & glaciers calving into the sea. A broad reach for the next few days. Much more sensible. We leave tomorrow. The transit should take 4 or 5 days.

Two boats are berthed by us at the town slip. One a Frenchie, Thierry, who has traversed the Northwest Passage twice. The other a lovely couple from Norway & Sweden. All are immensely experienced sailors. Both boats are also going to Greenland, though they will wait a week for better ice conditions.

The sail up the west coast of Iceland has been splendid. Reykjavik, Faxafloi bay, Snaefellnes peninsula, Breidafjordur bay & the extraoardinary Westfjords.

I love Ben's photos. They say so mch.

We left Olafsvik and sailed north in dense fog, reaching the west fjords in the middle of the night. The fog lifted and the sun peeked out in a glorious sunset as we entered Patreksfjord. We spent two days exploring, sailing, and eating cod. Our next destination was Arnarfjordur, a larger fjord to the north, where we spent another two nights. The wind acted like clockwork, allowing us to move in the peaceful mornings and pick up speed all day until anchoring became a nightly ordeal in 20+ knot winds. We never failed to find spectacular anchorages. If Teddy is our house, whales have become squirrels on our lawn. After Arnarfjordur, we sailed northeast all day in the enormous fjord system Isafjardardjup, and into jokullfirdir, the "glacier fjord" famous for katabatic winds. It was by far the most dramatic. The following morning was met with tremendous whitecaps and wind despite our sheltered location as the gusts came down the mountains. It took hours to leave the fjord and find a safer spot. Our next anchorage featured a treacherously hidden reef we narrowly missed. We are now in ìsafjördur, a lovely town nestled between mountains. On our way in, a fishing boat let us know that the pack ice is only 30 miles off ìsafjördur, and extends hundreds of miles. We are looking at ice charts, making friends, and gathering advice from local legends as we wait to head to Greenland, probably tomorrow morning. Our itinerary depends entirely on ice conditions.

The first fjords in the fog

Fishing isn´t even fun anymore - you drop a line and have two cod at once in a few seconds.

Sam provides cheap labor

1:30 am dip at anchor in Patreksfjörd

Clamming at a beach in Patreksfjörd. No clams.

Nick spotting whales.

Teddy wing-a-wing.

Huge waterfall at the base of Arnarfjörður

Blair Witch Project house, Arnarfjörður

Only debris, sheep, and empty booze bottles inside. Those sheep drink a ton.

Cod fillets

Despite Sam´s suggestions I didn´t secure the dinghy and had to swim after it. Water temperatures in the forties.

Minke whale plays chicken with Teddy and loses.

This is somebody´s neighborhood

Jökulfirðir

Approaching Isafjörður, last stop before Greenland

Thierry; calm, collected, French. Has sailed the Northwest Passage twice. A real legend.