Sailing down the east coast of Greenland

Ok, back to Greenland for a few days.

So we escaped having engine failure in Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord by towing using the inflatable and headed south-ish towards Tasiilaq, with a way point a little offshore to avoid ice.

The wind was pretty good for nearly two days, and we galloped along sometimes surfing down waves at 10+ knots.

However during R. & T.'s watch they got gusts 40 - 50 knots which was too much, and which could well have been katabatic in nature, coming off one of the glaciers (see above).

But that's what reefing is for.

The storm that had blown through a few days ago had left a bit of swell, which is always hard to capture in a photo and while this pic looks impressive it probably was taken a bit too close to the wave to really get a feel for it:

The view was always amazing.

Over the two weeks we spent many days sailing down the coast and Greenland was one long line of mountains, almost entirely unclimbed and unexplored. The mountains would go right down to the sea, intercut with glaciers, and behind would be rank upon rank of other peaks fading into the blue.

An empty, beautiful land.

Then nearby there'd be icebergs of course:

We also got the most wonderful sunsets:

But eventually, on the day we were meant to arrive, with under a hundred miles to go, the wind died.