Richard
Tue Aug 9 11:02:00 EDT 2011, near Upernavik, Greenland

In 1587, John Davis made his third and last voyage to Davis Strait and what is now called Baffin Bay. Davis named this 300m/1000' cliff Sanderson's Hope, after his main financial backer, William Sanderson of London. Davis wrote 'no ice towards the north but a great sea, free, large, very salt and blue, and of an unsearchable depth'.

A northerly gale prevented Davis from getting any further north than Sandersons Hope, and he sailed back to England.



Thanks for the comments to recent posts.

I'm not able to reply directly to comments while at sea, but I do receive them. It was interesting to read how hot it is in more temperate climates. It is certainly not hot here :). As to the question of where are we going next....stay tuned :)

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Richard
Tue Aug 9 11:02:00 EDT 2011, Greenland

When I was in Brazil, I took a liking to the drink they have there called caipirinha. It is made with lime, sugar, ice and either cachaca (a spirit from sugar cane) or vodka.

One of the things I wanted to do on this trip to the arctic (well, not the main objective :) ) was to have a caipirinha with ice from an iceberg. I brought some cachaca and some caiprinha mix (we don't have limes aboard) from Brazil for this purpose. In the picture, Lin is holding a piece of ice from an iceberg, and I have the cachaca and caipirinha mix.

On a more serious note, summer in Greenland is dominated by the Greenland High (high pressure, clear skies, light winds), so it can be deceptively tranquil in the arctic. While there are few signs of it now, summer is ending, and the easy, pleasant conditions seen in the pictures along with it.

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Richard
Mon Aug 8 18:00:00 EDT 2011, Greenland

Always different, always nice to look at (from a distance, on a clear, sunny, light-wind day).

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Richard
Mon Aug 8 10:00:00 EDT 2011, Greenland

We had a nice gentle wind blowing off the land at first, so a pleasant sail past the icebergs on a clear, sunny day. Winds blowing off the land don't produce much in the way of waves, and don't tend to have enough moisture for fog or rain.

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Richard
Sun Aug 7 10:00:00 EDT 2011, Greenland

We sailed north from Aasiaat. Disko Bay, which Aasiaat is on the SE corner of, is an area of spectacular icebergs, with lots of whales. It would be very nice to spend more time here, but the summer is short.

On the left, a whale is waving his tail.

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Richard
Sat Aug 6 10:00:00 EDT 2011, Aasiaat,Greenland

The marine railway tracks leading down to the harbor in Aasiaat. Issuma is just visible, docked across the harbor.

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Richard
Sat Aug 6 0:00:00 EDT 2011, Aasiaat, Greenland

The shipyard in Aasiaat is quite busy, working on several fishing boats. The boats are brought ashore on the marine railway by driving them onto the cradles, then the cradles are winched up the railway tracks until the boat is high and dry. In the picture, they are preparing the first cradle to receive another boat.

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Richard
Fri Aug 5 6:03:10 EDT 2011, Aasiaat, Greenland

Kayak rolling practice in Aasiaat harbor. Issuma in background at dock.
Note how narrow the kayaks are.

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Richard
Thu Aug 4 0:00:00 EDT 2011, Aasiaat, Greenland

The red building is the Seamans House, where one can arrange for showers and wifi.

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Richard
Tue Aug 2 21:30:00 EDT 2011, Aasiaat, Greenland

In the approaches to Aasiaat (formerly Egedesminde), this whale seems to be welcoming us to Greenland.

It is great to finally be in Greenland! This is my fourth attempt (in three years), to sail to Greenland. I haven't mentioned all of the attempts before on the blog because I like to focus on what has happened, not on what might have been.

In 2009, I left Argentina singlehanding. In the north of Brazil, I got dengue fever (it comes from certain mosquitoes--there is no vaccine, no cure and no immunity--you either survive it or not) which made me too weak to sail for several weeks. After recovering, it was too late to get to Greenland for the summer, so I sailed back south instead.

In 2010, I singlehanded (except for a few hundred miles) from Argentina to New York, picked up crew, and we left Labrador for Greenland. About 50 miles out, two shrouds (wires holding the mast) broke and the mainmast came out of its step and was damaged (see blog entries of last summer). We sailed back to Cartwright Labrador for repairs, and then I didn't trust the rig enough to cross the Labrador Sea with it, so we sailed up Labrador and to Baffin Island, before sailing south again.

This year, almost a month ago we left Labrador for Greenland and got farther, but again had rigging problems (followed by engine problems) which caused us to go to Cartwright, Labrador for repairs.

We arrived late last night, and promptly celebrated :).

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