Chasing Icebergs in Greenland
A CRUISE ALONG THE WESTERN COAST OF GREENLAND PROVIDES MIDNIGHT SUN, CHALLENGING NAVIGATION AND PLENTY OF ICE.
By Tom Zydler
POSTED May 10th, 2017 at 11:08am
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The fog hovers just outside Frances B’s anchorage, off the abandoned fishing village of Imerigssoq.
We turned downwind, and as my eyes quit watering in the cold blasts, I could steer straight for a narrow, open slot in the rocky shore. Inside, the water was wider as I turned the boat into a squall and had to rev up the motor to keep moving. Suddenly my wife, Nancy, and our friend Trish, who were on the bow, began waving their arms and yelling, “Rock, rock!” With the engine now screaming in reverse, the bow rammed it while the wind punched us on the beam, and good old Frances B, our Mason 44, heeled over and slid off.
We had just reached Færingehavn on the west coast of Greenland. We anchored in a spot that we had found was free of bottom weeds during our cruise there the year before, then we slipped below to warm up over mugs of tea. Night came, in name only, since at 63 degrees, 40 minutes north on the Fourth of July, the light stayed on. A gale whistled in the rigging and moaned over the surrounding hills. We thought of Evans Starzinger, at sea now on his 47-foot Hawk. He left Hawke Harbour, Labrador, three days after us, but he was sailing fast across Davis Strait and catching up quickly. During the nearly six-day passage, scattered ice had forced us to slow down and even heave-to once. The radar would not detect low growlers, and in those lower latitudes, the nights, though short, were dark. Evans, singlehanding, would have to get some sleep now and then. But at 0600, I stuck my head out and, amazingly, there was Hawk at anchor.
Færingehavn, once a busy fishing harbor, lies about 30 nautical miles from Nuuk, a small modern city and the capital of Greenland, where almost a third of the country’s 56,000 citizens live. Judging by our experience from two previous visits, we knew that lousy weather tends to linger in the fjords near Nuuk. Farther north along Greenland’s western shore and past the Arctic Circle at 66 degrees, 33 minutes north, conditions often improve. In a hurry to get back into the wild, raw seascapes of grand mountains and icebergs, we weighed anchor as soon as the weather eased. The goal was to stop in Aasiaat, a port on the southern edge of Disko Bay. If you are an iceberg freak, which we were fast becoming, this is where heaven begins. In the eastern corner of Disko Bay, near Ilulissat — a settlement established in 1740 and now a tourist hub — giant tongues of ice slide toward the sea from the Greenland ice cap. Glaciers calve enormous chunks, which fan out west and north toward open sea.
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About 30 nautical miles south of Nuuk, Færingehavn makes a convenient harbor of refuge along the coast.
Read the complete post online at:
http://www.cruisingworld.com/chasing-icebergs-in-greenland
Tom and Nancy Zydler are currently cruising the Southeastern United States and preparing Frances B for another trip to the far north.
The fog hovers just outside Frances B’s anchorage, off the abandoned fishing village of Imerigssoq.
We turned downwind, and as my eyes quit watering in the cold blasts, I could steer straight for a narrow, open slot in the rocky shore. Inside, the water was wider as I turned the boat into a squall and had to rev up the motor to keep moving. Suddenly my wife, Nancy, and our friend Trish, who were on the bow, began waving their arms and yelling, “Rock, rock!” With the engine now screaming in reverse, the bow rammed it while the wind punched us on the beam, and good old Frances B, our Mason 44, heeled over and slid off.
We had just reached Færingehavn on the west coast of Greenland. We anchored in a spot that we had found was free of bottom weeds during our cruise there the year before, then we slipped below to warm up over mugs of tea. Night came, in name only, since at 63 degrees, 40 minutes north on the Fourth of July, the light stayed on. A gale whistled in the rigging and moaned over the surrounding hills. We thought of Evans Starzinger, at sea now on his 47-foot Hawk. He left Hawke Harbour, Labrador, three days after us, but he was sailing fast across Davis Strait and catching up quickly. During the nearly six-day passage, scattered ice had forced us to slow down and even heave-to once. The radar would not detect low growlers, and in those lower latitudes, the nights, though short, were dark. Evans, singlehanding, would have to get some sleep now and then. But at 0600, I stuck my head out and, amazingly, there was Hawk at anchor.
Færingehavn, once a busy fishing harbor, lies about 30 nautical miles from Nuuk, a small modern city and the capital of Greenland, where almost a third of the country’s 56,000 citizens live. Judging by our experience from two previous visits, we knew that lousy weather tends to linger in the fjords near Nuuk. Farther north along Greenland’s western shore and past the Arctic Circle at 66 degrees, 33 minutes north, conditions often improve. In a hurry to get back into the wild, raw seascapes of grand mountains and icebergs, we weighed anchor as soon as the weather eased. The goal was to stop in Aasiaat, a port on the southern edge of Disko Bay. If you are an iceberg freak, which we were fast becoming, this is where heaven begins. In the eastern corner of Disko Bay, near Ilulissat — a settlement established in 1740 and now a tourist hub — giant tongues of ice slide toward the sea from the Greenland ice cap. Glaciers calve enormous chunks, which fan out west and north toward open sea.
About 30 nautical miles south of Nuuk, Færingehavn makes a convenient harbor of refuge along the coast.
Read the complete post online at:
http://www.cruisingworld.com/chasing-icebergs-in-greenland
Tom and Nancy Zydler are currently cruising the Southeastern United States and preparing Frances B for another trip to the far north.