Aagpilagtog 60:03N 44:30W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Wed 6 Aug 2008 17:16
We motored out of Kanderdluk after a quick
look at the glacier face. It had
dropped lots of bergy bits and sitting on the bow in the sun giving directions
is hard work. Sigrit is fortified with a cup of coffee and Helgur is
resting after his berg watch.
Out in Prins Christian Sund it
was against the tide; not much in the deeper, wider sections, but when we
got to the narrows there were lines of whirlpools at the edge of the
current. We did our best to stay out of it, but
with charts giving little but a line of soundings down the fjord centre and
those dropping from 150m to 75m, our 20m depth at 50m from a precipitous
shore seemed adventurous. 10m boulders seemed possible. Our
speed dropped to two knots as we motored at over five through the water, but
stories of very fast currents did not happen.
As in Iceland, information
on tidal currents is sparse and perhaps exaggerated. After
the Faroes, where the overfalls at every headland were serious
affairs and a local tidal current computer programme given when you
arrived, this did not excite us.
We went into the little village of Aagpilagtog, the
entrance has the mountain one side dropping straight down, perhaps 1,000 ft into
it.
We were the first foreign yacht this
year. We ended up tied to the quay. This is always
a good start as everyone soon knows about us. There were lots of small
kids, suitable customers for our penguins to Greenland idea. There were
also half a dozen Norwegians in kayaks with a support boat. They were just
finishing an trip along the fjords and a camera team turned up from the
Danish Navy.
We talked to the Inuit on the quay and walked round
the village. It had a supermarket, school and small but colourful
houses. I was dragged into a house by the wife of a man I had talked to on
the quay. I was told about a daughter going to college in Denmark and a
grandson starting school on Friday. All to howls of laughter as we had
great difficulty understanding each other. I was given two tiny serviette
rings that she had made with beads, but I had nothing to give in return. I
hoped she had heard about the penguins and that this was repayment.
The night alongside the quay was not a relaxed one
either. At one end we had a rope on to a pontoon with a digger on
it. At about midnight a loud crashing noise was the pontoon owner
trying to free it from the quay. It had settled on to some projection as
the tide dropped.
A bit later our ropes went tight. I freed
them and checked the tide which was close to low water at the nearest
tide station.
Later still two of our ropes had tightened enough
that I had to cut them. I had let them out to the knots previously and
could not undo them. Stupid old man. We were further up the fjord
from the tide station, so it is not surprising
that the tide was a bit later. In the morning we motored round to an
anchorage behind the village.
We went for a walk up the hill behind the village,
walking up 30 degree rock slabs. It would not have been much fun with wet
rock but gave excellent views. In a basin high up were a couple of large
pools, that we had seen people coming down from. The local
swimming pool? No, not unheated here.
There were seals being skinned near the boat as we
got back, seal hunting seems the main occupation here. Apparently the
skins are sold and the meat is free for anyone in the
village.
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