At the moment we’re anchored up in Thule, that’s a latitude of 77 27N. We were hoping to make it up to 80 degrees but I”m not sure if that’s going to happen. The ice charts still show a lot of ice up north that hasn’t broken up. From here we still plan on going north until we get stopped by the ice. We were in 4/10th (that’s 40% ice coverage on the surface) ice the other day and it was beating the hell out of us, I’m not sure if we’re willing to push it further than that – on purpose. All situations are different and thickness changes.
So where does that put us? I think we have about a week or less left in Greenland before we make our way south west down to Arctic Canada to wait on the ice to break for the Northwest Passage. Devon Island will most likely be in our sights after Greenland.
Greenland has been way more than what we expected, it has blown us away, the only disappointment has been the wildlife. We expected to see huge pods of whales and herds of Musk Ox’s. Of late we have seen hundreds of what I call “sea slappers”, little birds that look a little like puffins that have a difficult time taking flight from the ocean – the slap the water with their wings for what seems like an eternity before getting air. We haven’t really seen many seals either.
We don’t feel like we’ve missed much of Greenland (west coast that is), entering at Paamuit and, so far, as far north at Thule. We’ve seen fjords, glaciers, icebergs, the ice cap, tundra, mountain ranges, midnight sun, sea ice, fog, one thing we have yet to experience in Greenland is rain and darkness.
We have a mountain of spectacular pictures to share but they will have to wait until Alaska to share (if we make it), we’ve almost completed another fabulous video of Greenland which will also have to wait to share.
Our next leg of the journey is about to begin. The Northwest Passage. We don’t know how far we will get through but so far it has been worth the journey. I looks like our original “buddy boat” may not be making the journey with us (sniff sniff) but we have met up with a few other boats attempting the passage this year that we hope to hang with. We will have safety in numbers but we won’t be following others into iffy situations.
We have our ground support sending us updated ice charts and help with weather routing. We have ton of information on board and others coming in from sources so we will be making the best possible decisions for our family and extra crew on board.
We are on an adventure of a lifetime and my friends it’s only going to get better.
Follow our progress on our tracker page and even send us a message, nothing like some contact with the outside world when cabin fever sets in.