53° to 53.5°: seeking shelter

The night was demanding again with a pattern of sailing and motoring. I couldn’t sleep much. Even thought the iceberg chart clearly says that there shouldn’t be any ice here, I can’t relax. I configure the radar to ring an alarm if any target appears in the ±45° looking 3 miles ahead. But it’s raining, which requires to turn up the anti-rain clutter. I am worried that this also reduces the sensitivity for small ice. Then at some point, I get a bunch of intermittent alarms quite close by. Like 130 meters, 70 meters. But I can’t see anything. I take the spotlight and go outside. Unbelievably, there are flocks of rather small birds in the dark, inhospitable environment. I can’t believe it. What do those birds do here???

As the day breaks I am reaching a northern cape of Labrador. From now on the shore will go west, which would take me away from Nuuk. To avoid the headwinds that have already set in, I want to seek an anchorage for the afternoon and the night. Visibility is low, it’s raining, the charts aren’t accurate up here, rocks everywhere. I feel at the wrong place. The anchorage search takes a couple of hours, all options seem poor and the first maneuver isn’t successful: no holding, I move on. The second try is better, not much shelter though. On top of everything, the trampoline rips while I operate the anchor and I fall through with one leg. The trampoline is disintegrating from UV exposure.

The weather, the poor holding, the unprotected anchorage and then the leg fall don’t make for good moral. To lighten things up I shove a chicken in the stove, set the alarm and go to bed for a nap. The alarm rings, I mute it and oversleep. Well the chicken is well done when I get up!

After dinner I study the forecast and I conclude that I should stay here for another day and night. Heading out tomorrow morning would give me the swell that the 25+ knot wind are now building - head on. In agitated seas it is difficult to see the small growlers and the radar can’t detect them either. No thank you.

When leaving, first thing is to punch through the iceberg alley towards east during the day. So any departure should be in the morning. The great-circle distance to Nuuk is 655 NM, almost perfectly due north. Under normal conditions that’d be a 3-day sail, wiht the poor weather and the “ice routing” it will be 5 days. The simulations don’t look great but acceptable.

I plan to split the day 50:50 for office work and for the boat, it could get rough. So, stow everything, add lateral lines to the dinghy, check the heating system, mend the ripped trampoline and prepare the main sail for the second reef. I hope the rain will stop as predicted around noon.Read more