Hands and feet.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. August 25-28

It’s almost 0430 in the early morning. A half moon shines her light on the waves. We’re sailing between Iceland and Greenland, in the middle of the ocean.

The sea is not too rough. I can type this blog on a keyboard, which is not sliding under my hands. This is the most glorious part of the day. I’m completely alone. My two brothers are snoring away. It’s my watch.

Not a ship to be seen on the radar within a 150 NM circle. Only a lost seagull, interrupted in his sleep, takes off and lands again in the short distance to continue his rest on the waves .On the easterly horizon you can see the coming of tomorrow’s dawn. In two days we will be with the Inuit and, to frighten the ice bears, barking dogs.

I’m writing my daily blog….

Yesterday round the clock of 1300 we departed Reykjavik. The voyage to Greenland will take four days. It’s approximately 600 NM.

When you’re sailing in the middle of the Ocean you loose all sense of time. There can be a change in the weather, but everything else remains the same. To know which day it is you have to look at your smartphone or I-pad.

Sunday August 27 at 1400: One of us notices the first light blue contours of the mountains, alternating by white grey areas with snow and glaciers rising impressively from the sea. Greenland, the almost mythical island of the Inuit. The largest in the world except for Australia, but that’s a continent.

When approaching the coast we see the first icebergs. They really do exist!! We will see many of them, massive, large, rough, elegant and small in shape. We enter the Christiand Sund channel near an abandoned Danish weather station with a small harbour. Basically it continues as a fjord ,that separates some islands from the mainland. The landscape is breath taking. Sure, there are more places with fjords but after passing the abandoned weather station not a mast, house or cottage, road or human being to be seen.

Our only company are the inevitable seagulls. Ice floe, small icebergs and drift ice mark the areas where the glaciers reach the water. The small icebergs, melted into beautiful round shapes coloured white and azure blue, are amazing to watch.

Nature is an artist. After each bend in the fjord a new sight. A wind polished mountain landscape or by erosion and glaciers weathered rock formations.

In the late afternoon we sail to Aupilatoq, a small Inuit settlement. It has, we learn, a natural harbour, sheltered by mountains and rocks. Upon arrival we are greeted by a few silent but curious and friendly men. Communication is difficult but by using hands and feet and some English words it becomes clear that we can moor against the jetty. Later we find out that the inhabitants also speak Danish, but we don’t! The village with her colourful but flaked off wooden houses looks desolate.

The only way for transportation is either boat of helicopter. But there are facilities like electricity, street lights and on a high rock there’s a satellite communication installation and a helicopter pad. Near the harbour, with many small fishing boats, a small fish processing shed.

We stroll in the village with dozens of houses, some of them desolate, a small church and a community house. The streets consist of gravel roads. Some shovels near the road side and a road closed for excavation works.

It’s dinner time. The air is chilly, the night is clear, dawn is calling….

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