To Disko 4: The big dash to Disko Bay

After I finished my previous blog, we kept motoring to the Kangamiu Sermiat glacier, where we arrived around 23:00. But with the sun still up, the glacier presented itself in all its glory. Fantastic dimensions and more shades of blue than can be described or captured by camera.

The monster is alive, crackling and crunching is omnipresent. Every few minutes a small avalanche slides into the water. My and the crew’s gut feeling is that we are dangerously close to the wall. But meanwhile I know that judging distanance without reference objects like plants, trees, streets, feeling is often deceiving. I switch on the radar and get hard numbers: 1/4 NM, almost half a kilometer! The thing is just huge. We wait for a big calving but that won’t happen. Around midnight we turn away and seek an anchorage, which could be challenging.

The fjord is typically 150 m deep. We steer to the outlet of a glacier stream that has produced a delta of gravel and mud. The danger here is that the mud is so soft that the anchor will just slide through like in honey. We drop in 8 m depth, 35 meter chain and rev both engine to 1,5000 RPM in reverse. All good! At 1 am we drop to our bunks.

Next morning we motor pout of the fjord and meet yesterday’s whale again. How nice. Out on the open sea we hoist full main and genoa and start a slow sail WNW in search of stronger winds offshore. We are now on 66°N and Hafiz shall soon cross the polar circle at 66°33’N for the first time. With summer solstice already past, proper polar days are now found north of 68°33’N. Looking forward, that shall be interesting.Read more