At about 3am the watch crew had decided the ice had broken up enough that we could get through and woke the skipper who then started the engine, and we started motoring out of where we had been blocked. Once we were passed the short narrow section where the ice had blocked, the Fjord was wider and the ice easy to pass through.
I started watch at 5am with the skipper on the helm and later was handed a steaming bowl of porridge for breakfast which was very welcome.
We were heading toward a glacier called the Knud Rasmussen Glacier and arrived about mid-day. I had spent pretty much all morning on deck, helming for some of the time. We were motoring and there was an added factor in that you had to steer around the ice which required you to pick a path well forward to avoid the ice.
It was a nice day although it felt cold with the effects of the glacier and ice cooling the air. It was probably 5°c-10°c, the air was very dry.
Having arrived at the Glacier, Roman the mate had prepared a vegetable and frankfurter soup with homemade bread which was served on deck. It was an experience to watch the glacier and the surrounding fjord as we were drifting in deep water with very light winds less than 100 meters from the glacier.
The glacier was actively calving and just after lunch a large block fell off the glacier creating some reasonable sized waves.
In the afternoon a few brave people, err not me! donned swimming trunks and went for a dip off the boat. Most just dipped whilst holding on to the swim ladder, but one more adventurous chap swam quite away from the boat and back again. They then went inside to dry off and warm up! We didn’t have sufficient water for them to shower.
On the previous trip a tap had been left on by mistake emptying one of the water tanks. They were not able to fill up with water in Kulusak so we had to limit water usage and have to last a few days without showering before we were able to fill the tanks again.
Ales the skipper flew his drone over the boat and the glacier, I am hoping to get a copy of the footage.
We left the glacier for a 10 mile sail to a WWII American airbase called Ikateq Base. After Denmark was occupied by the Nazis during WWII, America occupied Greenland to prevent Germany occupying it. This was with the agreement of the Danish Ambassador in Washington. The Americans constructed airfields and used Greenland as a staging post for flights from North America to Europe.
We anchored off the base and went ashore in the dinghy. One sobering aspect was that one of the crew was carrying a rifle as protection against polar bear attack, thankfully not needed.
The sight is quite surreal, the dry atmosphere has mean that all the equipment is still lying about despite having been abandoned for 80 years. On the small wharf they had built a crane, the runway was still clear to see and made of crushed rocks, even the rock crusher was still there. There were abandoned trucks, none had motors in, so I suspect post war a lot of boats and generators locally were run on the removed truck engines. The fuel for the base and planes must have been bought in barrels there were tens of thousands of empty barrels lying around. There were also the remains of a metal framed building I suspect the metal sheeting had been removed post war for use locally on houses.
We walked around the for a few hours before heading back to GS. We then had a further 10 mile run to the town of Kuummiut. This has a population of around 270 people.
We anchored in a shelter bay behind the village and enjoyed spaghetti bolognaise for supper. It had been a long day as I had been up since 4.30am.