by John
on October 7, 2012
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Last year Phyllis and I made a voyage to the west coast of Greenland on Morgan’s Cloud. Once in Greenland, we spent nearly a month visiting remote hunting and fishing communities so that our friend Grete, an eminent anthropologist, could continue her study of the impact of climate change on the people. That voyage, which covered [...]
by John
on December 12, 2011
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Two weeks ago we tied to the same wharf that we left here in Charleston on April 1st—an appropriate date when you consider that our summer consisted of:
by Phyllis
on November 29, 2011
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This fall, on our way south bound for Charleston, SC after a challenging Arctic cruise to West Greenland, Baffin Island and Labrador, we were met on the dock in Northeast Harbor, Maine by our friend, Phil, a rock climber of some renown. The first words out of his mouth were, “Have you got over the [...]
by John
on September 30, 2011
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I thought about titling this post “High Latitude Voyaging, It Feels So Good When You Stop” but we like to keep things positive here at Attainable Adventure Cruising (AAC) World Headquarters. Anyway, here are a few milestones that we have experienced in the last month.
by John
on September 19, 2011
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We were tied up alongside a fishery wharf in northern Newfoundland when the roar of powerful engines brought us tumbling up from below to see two seine boats attached stern to stern by a thick line and both at full throttle.
by John
on September 18, 2011
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I first sailed to Labrador back in 1993, but even that visit was part of a cruise that included circumnavigating Newfoundland, which is enough all by itself for one summer.
by John
on August 30, 2011
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[Written August 27] I believe it was the explorer Cartier who christened Labrador “The Land God Gave to Cain”. Obviously he was no fan of Labrador’s barren mountains and often gale lashed and fog surrounded shores.
by John
on August 25, 2011
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[Written August 22] Sixteen years ago, during one of our first Arctic cruises on Morgan’s Cloud, we were fueling in Greenland prior to leaving for Baffin Island. The crusty old Danish skipper of the coastal passenger boat was on the wharf and, after severely admonishing us for even being in Greenland on a sailboat, he [...]
by John
on August 19, 2011
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As a visiting cruiser there are two ways to approach a different culture, like that of Greenland: Continually complain about the inconveniences and criticize the differences from the way of life back home, or embrace the differences and try and learn from them.
by Phyllis
on August 14, 2011
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(Click on the photographs to see them larger.) [Written July 28th] Wow! The last month has flown by! We’ve visited 12 communities (the unlucky 13th community was blocked by 7/10th ice so we had to turn back two miles out); traveled 700 miles through ice-choked waters, a lot of them sparsely and some not at [...]
by John
on August 3, 2011
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[Written on July 30th] Last night, for the second time in less than a week, we got hit with much stronger winds than forecast, generated, we think, by the proximity of the Greenland icecap.
by Phyllis
on July 31, 2011
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[Written July 26th] At the end of my last post, we had just left Uummannaq Fjord and sailed north into the Upernavik region. As you would expect, things are getting more remote up here (we are presently at 73°23’ N, as far north as we are going to get this cruise, give or take 12 [...]
by John
on July 29, 2011
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[Written on July 24th] The science project we are engaged in has pushed Phyllis and me hard. For us, 12 hour days have been the norm and several have stretched to 18 hours. Yesterday was typical. The morning starts early for me, as usual, with analyzing the weather (more on how in a future post), [...]
by Phyllis
on July 26, 2011
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[Written July 17] We have now been working on the science project detailed in an earlier post for ten days, visiting a number of villages in Disko and Uummannaq Fjords. As both of these are ice fjords and the villages were located in proximity to the hunting grounds—not on whether they had a good harbour [...]
by John
on July 24, 2011
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Phyllis and I were walking through a tiny (200 people) isolated community here in northwest Greenland today. A group of local people were gathered on the deck of a cottage, many in the traditional Greenlandic formal costume of snow white anoraks for the men, and brightly colored, intricately embroidered, bead-worked blouses with seal skin trousers [...]
by Phyllis
on July 20, 2011
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[Written July 17] As I mentioned in an earlier post, getting to Aasiaat Greenland was Part I of our summer voyage. We are now well into Part II, which, as we have alluded to, is a science project. We originally met Grete, an anthropologist, when we were living in Tromsø Norway on Morgan’s Cloud. She [...]
by Phyllis
on July 14, 2011
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[Written, July 10] We are presently anchored in a small cove on the north side of Uummannaq Island at 70°N and I’m on anchor watch. This is our fourth “anchorage” since leaving Aasiaat three days ago. I put anchorage in quotation marks because these are not the sheltered coves that we appreciate so much in [...]
by John
on July 12, 2011
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In the spring and early summer in the northern North Atlantic, a small herring-like fish called capelin comes inshore to spawn and many larger animals have a feast. During our trip north we had seen several pods of humpback whales feeding on the capelin, but only in the distance.
by Phyllis
on July 9, 2011
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[Written July 1st] In a previous post I mentioned a few things that have changed in Greenland over the 16 years we’ve been voyaging up here: less ice, more English, more sailboats, earlier cruising season, and a busier capital city due to oil exploration.
by Phyllis
on July 6, 2011
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[Written July 3rd] Well, here we are in Aasiaat, after an overnight sail of 200 miles from our last anchorage. This first part of the voyage has been a bit under the gun: We had to get from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada to Aasiaat, Greenland, between June 10th (just after John’s daughter’s wedding) and July [...]
