Foggy departure at 7am, with a light wind from the South. The morning is a treat despite the fog as we pass monumental icebergs and incredibly artistic ice sculptures, that remind us of swans, sphinxes, towers, forts, an ice-cream cone with caramel drizzle and even a thousand carat blue diamond ( a few of the bergs are completely transparent and a sharp shade of blue). We are going North along the West coast of Greenland.

Around noon, we have lunch under way, a nice carrot and slaw salad accompanied with foccacia, choice of sausage/walnut or cheese/rosemary. By the way, dinner last night was delicious “redfisk” a kind of dorado, served with green beans, and cooked perfectly. We eat it all every meal with delight as all the fresh air makes us very hungry.
By afternoon, the winds have really picked up and the waves are bigger with chop. The icebergs are numerous and very impressive and sometimes intimidating. We squeeze through some ice mazes and it takes great focus to meander safely without hitting any of the smaller pieces of ice especially when we are under sail. I forgot to mention that it rains all day, or to quote Helene, ” it’s rain only interrupted by showers”. Outside temperature is 9 and inside is much the same as the attempts at fixing the heater have not yet been entirely successful. So ” cool temperature interrupted by cold spells and tea” sums up the day.

The big surprise or disappointment, or both is that when we arrive in Nuusuaq with hopes of shopping at the village shop for groceries, the entrance to the bay is completely closed by a nicely aligned string of giant icebergs. We try to make our way through a very small break between shore and an iceberg, but it is just too narrow and we have to pivot and retire the way we came, feeling almost trapped in a fortress of ice, surrounded by high towers of blue and white ice with waves breaking hard on their base. For a few seconds, it’s pretty eerie in the gray weather and the fog patches. But this is what we came for, it’s grand.

It’s lucky we find another bay, mostly clear of ice only about 7 miles away. Dinner is only delayed a few minutes and I am actually called up by the chef to shell the wild mussels. That’s a priority, off I go! I so need my dinner after this 12 hour day. We have reached 74 degrees North, a first for me.