Ice Dramas

Saxon Blue's Blog
Harvey Jones and Andrea Stokes
Tue 20 Jul 2010 23:58
70:41.747N 54:35.038W Tuesday night

Greenland is an amazing place and feels very far away from everything I am used to. I am really enjoying it despite having times of feeling very sad. At the moment we are anchored up in a tiny deserted bay miles away from civilisation. There are about 50 massive icebergs just outside the bay and the fog has just drifted in leaving us in a ghostly isolated world with the creaky crashing sound of icebergs breaking up very near by. Its very other worldly and beautiful and makes the world seem very wild and untamed and certainly does help with how I'm feeling. Last night we were woken up by a small berg that drifted into our anchorage and rubbed up against the boat with a crunchy creak. No damage done but it got us all running about in various dressing gowns and pants in the midnight sun! Its been great fun having Jamie and Paul aboard and we are all going to really miss them when they leave tomorrow.

Andrea

That about sums up another great day in Greenland. We're anchored now and tied to the rocks in a place where the Greenland Norse settlers used to come to hunt in the summer. They left a tiny stone-built chapel and we also found the remains of some buildings constructed from turf and stones. The beaches are shallow-sloping shingle and you can see where they would have hauled their boats up out of the sea.

The view of the icebergs here is strangely fascinating, I think because they are sitting on what looks like a normal sea. Every time you look and see them sitting there, you do a double-take. I was wondering out loud why it is that you can sit and watch them for ages without getting bored. Jamie thought it was the same way that you can sit and stare into the flame of a real fire. I love that image. Fire and ice connected in some way by the way that they make our eyes feel. Your eye kind of wanders over the bergs without ever coming to rest and, when you next look at the same one as before, it seems different.

As we came into this anchorage, a smallish berg disintegrated and the debris drifted past Saxon Blue. The cracking sound as the berg collapsed made us jump but it was the sound of the bits that was the most interesting. They tinkle and fizz as they bob about. Also, when you look at one of the tiny translucent pieces, you can see veins in it like quartz. The huge bergs have enormous blue veins through them and the tiny ones repeat the structure on a smaller scale. As I said, bergs are endlessly fascinating.

We'll miss the boys when they leave tomorrow - the boat will feel very empty and quiet.

Harvey

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