Day 21

I’ve sailed through many icebergs of all sizes and shapes in the southern oceans off Antarctica, but I never get tired of the majesty of these colossal ice sculptures as they appear out of the early morning half-light. Photos never do them justice but nevertheless we’re all trying to get the perfect angle. They are undoubtably beautiful, but they also demand respect. With the radar on we can locate the bergs at range and chart a safe course through them. What doesn’t show up are the appropriately named ‘Growlers’, small lumps of ice varying between the size of a car or a decent size house, with only a few inches showing above the water. Hit one of these and our day will very rapidly get dramatically worse.

Regardless we are all buoyant as the grey smudge on the horizon clarifies into the glacier shrouded peaks and jagged islands of the Greenland coast…. We’ve beaten the worse of the gales and made it across the Danish straights in once piece, all we have to do now is thread our way through the ice and find an anchorage -not the easiest task in a bay with only 2 soundings from over a hundred years ago and numerous active glaciers carving out the sea floor. With calm confidence the joint services skipper David slowly feels his way into the bay, ensuring all of us have the opportunity to helm through the ice. The bay itself is almost 50 km deep, but we are only heading in about 20km, still it takes time and its early afternoon before we’re finally sitting at anchor just 100m of the intended drop off beach. It says a lot to the expertise of the skipper and his crew that we have been able to get all the way here, ahead of time without any serious incident. Adventurous training is about managing not eliminating risk, and the team have managed it expertly.

Obviously being so close to shore we can’t just sit on our hands and after a quick bite to eat we pile into the tender and head ashore to recce Greenland. We’re in polar bear country so we must be cautious. Marcus and Poul are bringing two rifles and a flare gun but until they arrive half a dozen flares and a paddle will have to do. We scramble to the top of the imposing moraine slope at the back of the beach eager for our first sight of the glacier that should provide our ramp up onto the Icecap. It does not disappoint and after an hour or so examining the ice and flying the drone over the crevasse fields we return to the boat to ponder our options.

After all the challenges along the way part of me can’t quite believe that we’ve managed to get almost to the end of Phase II and are getting ready to start the crossing of Greenland itself. All we need now is for the two Danish members of the team and six sailors replacing us on Discoverer to safely complete the 100-mile transit down the Greenland coast and RV with us off the beach…. Oh and almost 500 km of dragging our pulks across the breadth of the country.