Glacier Walk

mollihawk's shadow
eddie nicholson
Wed 6 Aug 2014 14:30
Our position is now 64:01.32N 52:20,93W motoring South and
after an uneventful night in this windless part of the world, passing Nuuk the
Capital of Greenland. While we would love to call in it is 20 miles in to port
from our current line and 20 back again. Next time I hear the Skipper
calling!!
We look forward to a different day today as our Chef is on a day off!
First of the trip and is reluctantly being strapped to the back seat with a
glass of wine in his hand for the day. The apprentice is confident and we all
hope he is a success as the standard is set very high, he has been advised that
it is bread making day and being mid-week a dinner roast would be appreciated!
He has been chosen as the ginny pig so as to put his when-we cheffing stories on
previous Atlantic crossings to test, I always like to call the bluff of a
Solicitor!
We travelled up one more fjord yesterday before heading out to sea, to find
a glacier face at the end of it and decided to shoot in in the dinghy for a
look. From the boat it looked like a large swirl of chocolate and milk had
frozen as it was poured down the ravine and into the sea.
It hadn’t any signs of calving (moving) and we landed on a gravely surface
in front of the glacier which was the remains of the grit and boulders left
behind from when the calved ice had melted.
With ice axe in hand we attempted to climb onto the face of the glacier but
without crampons on our boots we were going nowhere. It was a sheet of ice and
too steep to get a grip. It was a pity as we had hoped we would experience
a walk on a glacier. Instead we arrived back to the boat with very muddy
boots.
The views on the way out of the fjord were absolutely stunning as the fog
had lifted and all the peaks were revealed high above us on either side, the
mini glaciers all hanging from the mountains in front of you as you pass them.
Flocks of hundreds of seagulls swirling around from the cliff face high up to
the water below to feed. We wanted to stop again and explore but were already
behind because of our exciting encounter with the whales.
With the calm weather and flat motoring conditions it will allow us to get
a few jobs done on the boat, with all the excitement up here what with whales
scratching themselves on our rudder and exploding icebergs we never seem to get
a moment for the house work! A relook at yesterday’s foto’s seems to have taken
preference as i write that could take all day!
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