06 Aug Greetings from Baffin Island

Greetings from Baffin Island, Canadian Arctic. For the last 3 weeks we’ve taken Novara into Greenland and up the Greenland West Coa

st. On 21 July we crossed into the Arctic Circle. Then late last week we sailed across the Davis Strait to Canada. We’re now heading out of Sam Ford Fiord after sheltering from a storm for the past 2 days. We’re bound for Pond Inlet, and the gateway to the Northwest Passage. Our eyes are on the weather, hoping it holds while we make the 220 mile run up the coast.

If there’s one word that summarises my time since arriving in Greenland it is grandeur … and humility. Ok, that’s two words. The enormous lengthof the fiords, the stupendous scale of the glaciers, the quantity of ice. A week ago we were in Ilulisaat – there the glacier calving face is 17km long, and the face stands 200m t

all. We couldn’t get closer than 50km because of the huge volume of ice it is shedding. And then a few days ago, we got within 1.5km of the face of the Equip Sermia glacier. We just drifted there for an hour, listening to the thunder roll rumblings of the glacier moving, cracking, collapsing. The scale is breath taking, and humbling.

There’s also the sheer buzz of adventure. We’re pushing Novara through ice

packs, exploring fiords few other people in the world have ever seen. We’re sheltering in places that are quite literally off the map. Our last anchorage that we just left was in unchartered waters with sheer cliffs that rose 1,500 m above us.

And we move on, forever north. We’re nearly at 71 degrees north – more north than the northern part of Norway. And that means 24 hour daylight. It’s

strange, but even after only 3 weeks I find it hard to recall what it is like to have a dark sky.

The team continues to impress me. We’ve been together 2 months now, and we’re gelling well. It’s got to the point where we can manage the boat almost without a word as each person knows what to do. And we get on with it. I am also discovering the importance of food. We’re eating well, if not a little meat heavy for my likin

g. I have tried to change that by cooking vegetarian meals when it’s my turn. Let’s just say those meals weren’t met with applause. It was either my cooking or the lack of meat. I’m saying it’s the lack of meat.

And the swell is rolling in now. Time to put the laptop away and enjoy the view.