On the horizon were mountains and these too were streaked in ice, but between them and the water were a spread of buildings together with a church spire.
The Imray pilot said the approach was straight-forward but gave no details. While we had to hunt for a bit to spot the safe water buoy and north cardinal just beyond, eventually both were identified and the final pilotage went smoothly.
Lines were prepared, fenders attached and with an easy leap I was ashore making fast.
Land seemed to heave beneath our feet but Tristan and I exchanged grins and high-fived. We had done it:
- sail through the Faroes....... tick
- sail up to the Arctic Circle..... tick
- sail into uncharted waters......tick
Many thanks to Tristan for suggesting it in the first place and then making it happen: it had been an amazing sail, great fun as well as a great adventure.
12 comments:
Well done to both of you!
By the way, did you and Tristan originally get to know each other by reading each other's blogs, or did you already know each other before you both became bloggers?
We met when we did the ARC in 2003 and shared a watch for the first week, having many good discussions about topics from philosophy to Frasier.
Enjoyed following along on your voyage.
What is next?
Excellent series of posts - the real thing.
Fantastic landfall - congratulations
Is Tristan going to blog about the voyage too? There must have been a lot of "natural navigation" insights on the journey, surely?
Loved this journey and wish it could never stop
wonderful photos
Congratulations! Nice set of trip reports - and I'm looking forward to Tristan's take too (especially on the topic I'd already asked you about).
Thanks everyone!
Yes, Tristan is planning some posts and papers but he's busy promoting his book ("The Natural Explorer" - get your copy now!!) plus enjoying some quality family time to make up for those weeks away.
We did some systematic hourly observations of wildlife and collected quite a bit of data but again I'm leaving that to Tristan.
Rather sadly Bonnie he did reply to your questions but then the blogger crashed taking his comment with it but hopefully he'll have another go when he gets a chance.
Oh, and what next is alas to catch up with work etc but there is the little matter of the Olympics coming up.
However I've got the bug for high latitude sailing and want to do that again
Try Jan Mayen Island - 70°59′N 8°32′W.
Brother and I sailed there from Iceland few years back.
Sounds amazing Kristjan - I'd like to hear more about that sail.
To be honest Jan Mayen was on the "it would be nice list" but when we got to the Arctic Circle the winds were light from the north. If they'd been E or W so we could reach up/down we might have been tempted to go for it.
One of key constraints was time as both Tristan and I are very busy and the baseline plan was one we felt we'd be able to do in 2 - 3 weeks.
I was looking at the Sumara of Weymouth blog and they went up there last year but had more time than we did.
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