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Amazing nature

18 August, 1015 UTC, 100nm to go to Ittoqqortoormiit, SOG 6.0kn, COG 40T

It's been a strangely uneventful and at the same time very eventful 21 hours.
Maybe the uneventful feeling comes from the calm and quiet outside: the seas have calmed down (although we still have a long swell, that rocks the boat, but in a gentle, almost calming way), the skies are grey and overcast but in a beautiful rather than threatening way and the ice around us is hauntingly beautiful. Even the sound of the engine (we are still motoring) has a sort of calming and soothing sound to it's rhythm, despite the muffled noise.
It has been eventful in a totally different way: our first glimpse of breathtaking Greenland, more bits of ice, massive ice bergs, a field of ice floes, whales, porpoises...all in the span of less than 24 hours...

Around dinner time last night we first saw Greenland, from 68nm away! A continuous band of black mountains speckled with white snow bits stretched away in both directions ahead of us...a marvellous sight, especially as some of the snowy caps were glinting in the sunlight amidst the darker shadowy mountains.
Soon after we changed our NNW course for a more northerly course, to get behind the ice that is to our north east. By now, we are following the coast line of Greenland - or rather, we are on a course parallel to the coast, as we cannot see land anymore despite only being some 12nm away from it!
There is a lot of moisture in the air, but so far the fog has miraculously and thankfully held off. We're hoping that by the time we get into the Sound, Greenland's high pressure system has reasserted itself and will be back into place with blue skies and sunshine streaming over the icy surroundings.

All watches (3 this time, a lot easier than the 2 from our first attempt: Boogie and Luke, Mark and Liv, Susan and myself) have sighted whales. Our whale showed up on our 6-10 morning watch, just as we were playing 'dodge the ice bits' in a large field of smallish ice floes. It surfaced not 15m behind the boat, in its calm, gentle way bobbing out and into the water. An amazing sight between the ice...
Boogie and Luke even got a visit from a pod of porpoises, playing around the boat.

The ice has been breathtaking this trip: up until about now (pretty much clear at the moment), we have been seeing at all times 6 to 8 big to very big bergy bits or icebergs (to be honest, not quite sure when a bergy bit becomes an iceberg, or vice versa, but let's just say there are some really big ones out there!).
Coming on deck at 6am this morning we were surrounded by them: the biggest one we could see actually turned out to be the one that was farthest away...making us realise how big it must really be. Looking at them, becomes like looking at clouds: you start seeing all sorts of things! We have had the typical 'sloping-into-a-pointy-bit' one, that turned into a square block of flats from the other side; a dinosaur turned airplane turned castle turned playground (with caves and slides into the water and all) turned old city wall; a big oil tanker turning into a very large rabbit with it's bum up and it's snout in the ground (water), with just it's ears sticking out in front...the list is endless.
Further south of us, we saw some smaller bergy bits being lighted up in the sun, making for a view of astonishing beauty.

The colours and forms are beautiful and ever changing and make you aware of what truly amazing things nature is capable of. Not only in the way of the natural beauty we see around us, but also how wonderful nature has crafted our own bodies: the perspective and dimensions, colours and depths in the ice can instantly be seen by our eyes, in a detail that is impossible to capture on film or video. With a bit of luck, you can even remember that image and recall it, complete with how it makes you feel: small in the face of nature, but at the same time capable of anything.
If only it would make me capable of capturing it on canvas...

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Star Chaser Sailing Ltd - Trading as Sail Blue Planet and
Blue Planet Sailing Adventures

Phone: +44 7795 566 277
info@sailblueplanet.com