The raven and the glacier

The next anchorage was D'Aunay Bugt, where the yacht felt insignificant against a landscape of glaciers and mountains (above, the boat is BR).

Here we stayed two nights, with two good hikes. The first was up to the ridge that was meant to overlook the other inlet marked on the chart. But it seemed to have been clogged with gravel, the bar high and dry, apart from a rushing river fed by another glacier.

We were inspected by a raven, which flew round us, squawking a greeting:

In the barren landscape this sign of life was startling and we could see why the Vikings considered them messengers of the gods.

The next day we hiked to a glacier. In the crisp, clear, Greenland air it seemed so close and yet it took all day to reach its base, scrambling over a rubbish tip of giant boulders:

We gingerly tried to walk on its surface but the edge was a mixture of mud and slush that dissolved like quick sand under foot, leading to many metres of mud slide slipping downwards.

Disturbed by these signs of instability and aware of the long trek back to the boat we went no further, but headed down again passing patches of beautiful purple flowers:

Here we found that Siggi had put out the net and caught something just right for our good appetites: fresh Arctic char.