64:18.7N 23:38.3W

 

Crew one have all now departed with Gareth and Paul leaving yesterday and Derek the day before. It seemed rather strange to not have them on board, although they all seem to have left something behind; I’m getting quite a collection of sunglasses and headlamps.  They were great crew mates.

 

Moored ahead of us was”Henry” which is a fellow RCC yacht and we had a few drinks together on board. It is owned by Will Whatley, whose other ship incidentally is the David Attenborough. They were heading to the east coast fjords in Iceland. Rather strangely our combined crews included 5 RCC members and 4 BAS folk!

 

The new boys slowly arrived, mostly having experienced air flight delays and cancellations. We gave up waiting for Graham and went to bed hoping he would get onto the correct boat. He did. Our new crew consists of Olly, Tim, Alastair, Christophe and Graham. All except Graham have sailed on Umiak before and I’m sure in due course they will all be writing up the blog.

 

Also moored in Reykjavik was another KM yacht, Nanuq. She is worth looking at on the KM Yachts website. Built specifically to overwinter in the ice. Bart the owner, whom I had met when Umiak was under construction, had just spent the last two winters drifting across the polar pack a la Nansen. Quite a remarkable trip especially as he was on his own, except for 48 polar bear sightings!

 

Time to set off and we are yet again sailing to windward to Greenland.