Thursday 25 August, Hekla Havn (Danmark O) to Ittoqqortoormiit
It's a long trip back to ITQ, some 90nm, so it's a 4am start. Still a bit groggy Boogie, Luke, Mark and myself get up on deck to get the lines back on board and the anchor weighed.
Our efforts are rewarded and we are treated to a glorious sunrise with soft pinks and fiery reds colouring the clouds, the snow on the mountains and the icebergs floating around us. A magnificent start of our day.
As there is still no wind, we motorsail East and get overtaken by Hildur, giving us some more great photo opportunities: they even hoist up all their canvas giving us some marvellous shots of this classic schooner against the backdrop of all this beauty.
By the time we arrive in ITQ, Hildur is already there: bow and stern line ashore and a breast anchor to starboard. As there is still a bit of ice about, they invite us to come along and Boogie expertly manoeuvres us into place.
The change with last week is shocking: where we had to weave our way through big ice floes and bergy bits last week to get in and out of ITQ, there is now mostly open water with some scattered ice and bergy bits around. Astonishing how one week can change the scenery up here.
A good thing too, because how we would have anchored had we still had that much ice remains to be seen.
There was however enough ice and a bit of sunshine left that I had to man up: here was the ice floe I had been looking for, so bikini on and in the dinghy with Boogie!
As he manoeuvred the dinghy close to the ice floe, I tried to mentally prepare myself and at the same time tell myself that I was not raving mad, just a bit eccentric. It didn't do much to prepare me for the shock when I slid into the water, right next to the ice...
At first, it just seemed cold. Very cold. Then it assailed me: "This is bl*&^y COLD!!!! Too cold!!!"
I could feel my fingers and toes go slowly numb and called to Boogie, who was fiddling with the camera to save my moment of madness for eternity, to get me out. He was still shooting and I insisted: "Get me out NOW!!! It's cold!!"
He quickly pulled me back into the dinghy and being outside in the air with my t-shirt back on, I almost felt warm...and it was about 5 degrees outside!
As we were slowly turning back to the boat, Boogie confessed he hadn't been able to get the ice in the photo...so in a flash I decided, "what the heck, I've been in, let's do it again and get a proper photo!"
We moved on to the next floe, that still had some sun shining on it and there I went again...it wasn't as much of shock to the system the second time round as I knew what to expect: COLD!
This time, I didn't tell Boogie to get me out, I just inwardly edged him on and encouraged him to 'hurry the f*&k up!'. He very much obliged and I pulled myself back in, well cold...back on the boat I was literally glowing and quickly went down below to dry off, get a warm shower and get dressed again...must say it took a long time to get properly warm again and I will not be joining the ice cubes anytime soon again!
Still did it though!!
