Four hundred miles to Greenland 63:42N 31:05W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Wed 30 Jul 2008 11:37
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Wednesday morning and a good broad reach, rolling
us down to Greenland at 7 knots. The wind had increased to 20 knots but
without any breaking waves. I worried about taking in a reef at midnight,
as I expected the sea to get up but look at this, after our breakfast of
porridge with meusli and marmalade, we rigged a dodger to keep spray out of
the cockpit:
 Helgur said we were reading 8 knots on the gps when
surfing and then went to sleep.
As all good crew, when not on watch and with the
washing up finished, he is catching up after the night watches.
With three of us, we do two hour watches at night,
10pm to 6am, then four hour watches all day. These are more nominal than
real but it lets two of us catch up on sleep in a civilised way.
Sunny yes, but with 20 knots of wind not so
calm
 Can you see the wind vane? To the left of the
flag, easily able to cope with this, although the blocks on the ropes to the
tiller squeak and chat all the time.
At the end of the rope towing astern, to the left
of the aerials, can you see the towed charger surfacing? In these conditions it holds the battery voltage
right up.
 From the bow you get a bit more idea of the
bouncing but with little water coming aboard.
Keeping a lookout is not really a problem until we
close the Greenland coast. There is no shipping and not much to look
for.
The sea temperature is still 14 C. It will
drop in the current from the north that brings icebergs down the East coast of
Greenland from glaciers and the arctic. The Danish ice service is not
reporting too many at present.
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