It was either Greenland or Greece; we hadn’t decided just where to go for our summer cruise. Annie, who dislikes being cold, wet and frightened, felt that Greenland would give her too much of all three; I reminded her that ‘strenuousness is the path of immortality’. She wasn’t impressed. However, we had the good fortune to meet Willy Ker and Hugh Clay at the Beaulieu Meet and their enthusiasm for Greenland soon convinced us that a cruise to its west coast was quite feasible in Badger, our 34ft junk schooner. Badger is not equipped to shunt ice and by avoiding the south-west coast of Greenland and not going too far north, we should not have to deal with any pack ice. 

We spent the winter months in Mallorca and started heading west in mid March, along the Spanish coast towards Gibraltar. We had to wait there for a week for a levanter to blow us out of the Mediterranean and on to the Algarve. Here we made use of the tidal range at Faro to dry Badger out on her legs and antifoul her bottom. On 26 April we left for Porto Santo and had a splendid passage, covering the 480 miles in three and a half days, a welcome change from some of the interminable passages in the Mediterranean. It is now possible to anchor in the harbour at Porto Santo for a modest sum. This provided complete protection from the swell, but we were continually hit by strong gusts while the fresh north-easterly wind was blowing. A few days later we sailed the 30 miles over to Madeira, and spent the night anchored in the lee of the eastern peninsula before carrying on to Funchal. May is a good time to visit Funchal and while we were there there were never more than twenty other visiting yachts — a marked contrast to the autumn months.

After a happy two week stay we sailed to Ponta Delgada in the Azores. We had originally intended to see more of the Azores, but when the wind served we were in the middle of some job or other and when we were ready, the wind would have been right on the nose, so we stayed put. Here Annie did her sums on the back of an envelope and bought prodigious quantities of potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage and garlic. ‘Enough to see us to Canada’, she announced — and she was right. The plan was to head north west, skirt the iceberg limit off Newfoundland and sail direct to Disko Bay. By leaving from the Azores we hoped to go across the grain of the depression tracks and perhaps have less bad weather and more fair winds. The plan worked well and we had a good passage as far as the Labrador Sea. There the wind deserted us and we crawled north at a snail’s pace. We stayed at least 120 miles off the south-west coast of Greenland and avoided seeing any ice until we reached 62°N. Seeing my first iceberg loom out close at hand through the fog certainly got the adrenalin flowing — I put in a lightning tack to avoid it and then realised that it was at least half a mile away. Annie’s experiences were obviously similar. I quote from the 0245 log entry from a few mornings later: 

• Mad Frogs and Englishmen sail up in the midnight sun. 
• The Norse and Danes don’t care to 
• The Dutch and Swedes don’t dare to 
• With ice and fogs and winter togs 
• And all that kind of fun . 
• Mad Frogs and Englishmen sail up in the midnight sun. 

The light winds seemed so persistent that in the end we abandoned our plan to head straight for Disko, instead ghosting and motoring towards Maniitsoq/Sukkertoppen, the next town north of Nuuk/Godthaab. As we neared the coast the fog disappeared and the high mountains behind Nuuk stood out crystal clear. The following day we arrived in Maniitsoq having taken twenty-eight days to cover the 2054 miles. 

It was Saturday evening when we got in and we celebrated our arrival with an excellent meal and a bottle of champagne. Next morning we had jobs to do, then walked around the town and climbed a hill to reconnoitre the inside passage and admire the mountains and snow fields to the east. 

On Monday we took the inside passage north toward Hamburgerland (sic) and then east along Hamburgersund. As we approached Agpamiut, our intended anchorage for the night, a thick bank of fog rolled in, but we managed to find the entrance by keeping to a compass course. Shortly after we anchored the fog lifted briefly, revealing the impressive mountains and glaciers of Hamburgerland. We motored out the next morning in fog; the tide was an unknown quantity, but it was ebbing. I hadn’t allowed enough for it and consequently we were swept off our intended track. Fortunately we spotted some islands so we could fix our position and regain the channel out. There is an inside passage up the west coast as far as Disko Bay. We had not intended to use this because of the risk of fog — and we don’t have radar. Our exit from Hamburgersund confirmed the necessity of keeping offshore. 

We sailed north in light headwinds, with the fog coming and going continually. A recent modification that we made to Badger was to fit a Jester – type revolving pram hood. This made a substantial difference to the comfort of the watchkeeper, and we could keep a continual lookout for ice during our three hour watches without suffering from exposure in temperatures in the upper 30°s. Meanwhile the Hasler self-steering kept us on course.

On Saturday 20 July we sailed into Disko Bay. The fog lifted, revealing an impressive array of icebergs. We motored in a flat calm to the Kronprin sens Islands, where we anchored at lunchtime.

The FPI for Greenland, largely the work of John Gore-Grimes and Willy Ker, is surprisingly comprehensive for much of the coast. However the area that interested us, around Disko Island, was not so well covered and this gave us a good excuse to do some ‘exploring’ and possibly add to the FPI’s information. This exploring was more on the lines of Secret Water than to Captain Cook’s standards. The large-scale Danish charts appear to be compiled from aerial surveys; the topography and coastline are well marked, as are rocks awash, but soundings are conspicuous by their absence.

Our first anchorage in the Kronprinsens Islands was completely land locked with a very Hebridean atmosphere. We sounded around the small bay from the dinghy and then climbed up to the top of the hill to view all the icebergs streaming out of Disko Bay. The weather had turned in our favour and we were enjoying a perfect ‘Greenland day’, as Tilman would have called it. Clear warm days, but alas little wind. The next morning we went on to a deserted settlement on another island; this had only recently been abandoned and the school house still had desks in it. After lunch we carried on to Qeqertarsuaq / Godhavn, the main town on Disko Island.

We then motored along the coast a biscuit’s toss from the beach, looking into Fortune Bay and on up to Disko Fjord. We were rather saddened by the amount of jetsam washed up — the most noticeable being an endless line of plastic fish boxes. We spent two days in Disko Fjord — the first night off an abandoned Loran station which was in a surprisingly good state of repair, considering that it had been untended for over twenty years. There are several branches of Disko Fjord but the most interesting seemed to be Kangerdluarssuk. This has the small settlement of Diskofjord and several bays along its north shore. Diskofjord is a typical small settlement; shark meat and drying seal skins greet you as you land in your dinghy. A dirt track serves for the main street, with small brightly painted houses scattered over the hillside, many of them with huskies tethered outside. There is a government KNI general store, astonishingly well stocked, with everything from ‘prunes to harpoons’ as Yogi Bear would say. We were a little surprised that the locals did not appear to be the slightest bit curious about us; I’m sure they can’t get that many yachts in each year. This was one of the few days when we had a decent breeze and sunshine, so we made the most of it, sailing in and out of the bays and making a rough sketch chart of the several good anchorages. We then returned to the best of them to anchor for the night.

From Kangerdluarssuk we continued north, spending the next night anchored in Nodre Laksebugt, a bay wide open to Baffin Bay, but in this settled weather there was not even any swell. We now decided to press on to Uummannaq Fjord, taking the passage between Hareon and Disko to enter the Vaigat where we hoped that we would be able to see the mid night sun. This was the last day on which it was visible at our latitude, but shortly after 2300 a thick bank of fog rolled in from the sea. There was plenty of ice going north along the Vaigat and it didn’t seem a place in which to mess around in fog. I had noticed a shingle beach off the south end of Hareon, about a mile behind us, so we turned round and hoped to find a reasonable depth in which to anchor. We just made it before the fog closed in, and found 8 metres a reasonable distance off the beach. The fog didn’t thin out until after lunch the next day, when we set off to resume our passage. That evening it started to rain and the wind slowly picked up from the east, right on the nose. 

By early morning we were beating into an easterly F 6 with far too much ice about for comfort. The trouble was trying to decide which pieces of ice we could safely clear to windward, which to leeward. In the end we found that, looking from our pram hood, any ice forward of the first stanchion on the lee bow would safely pass to windward of us, while any ice abaft the second stanchion would safely pass to leeward. The ice that appeared between the two stanchions had us hopping from foot to foot, and in the end we either bore away from it or put in a tack. The most nerve-wracking part was trying to spot the growlers among the white caps. Fortunately it didn’t last too long and by lunchtime it had brightened up. Eventually we had to start the engine to make our anchorage at Qeqertat Island. This was our furthest point north — 71°. 

The entrance to our anchorage was guarded by a spectacular iceberg with a hole in the middle. This collapsed the next morning with a tremendous roar, sending a small tidal wave up the far side of the anchorage, and worse, filling the entrance with brash ice. In the hopes that this might clear we took a walk on the island. To the north of us was Upernivik Island, rising straight from the sea to 7000 feet. It was here that Tilman climbed on his first Greenland voyage. Further to the west we could see Ubekendt Island. Aficionados of Tilman will remember this as the place where he cast covetous glances at an old gentleman’s sealskin trousers. In fact he went so far as to buy some skins to make a pair, thinking that he would cut a dash in Barmouth; alas, they ended up as a coat for his sister. To the east we had a good view of the inner part of Uummannaq Fjord, which was full of ice, but there seemed plenty of passages through which we could take Badger.

We went down and sounded around the anchorage, but in spite of this delaying tactic the brash ice still hadn’t cleared from the entrance, so we gingerly crept out of the bay trying to avoid the larger pieces of ice. I hate to think of what it sounded like down below but, surprisingly, the paint was hardly scratched. We turned east and ran down to Agpat Island ‘wing and wong’ in the following breeze. The gentle conditions gave us ample time to admire the beauty of the icebergs. Each was sculpted in a unique shape, with Sydney Opera House seeming a popular theme. Agpat towered 5000 feet up on our port hand, with the distinctive triangular peak of Uumman naq away to starboard. It’s difficult to comprehend the massive scale of the scenery here, and it wasn’t until we closed the shore of Agpat that a team of huskies, marooned for the summer on a tiny grass ledge, gave some scale to the cliff above them. We entered an inlet on the south side of the island and carried on to the very head of the bay until we eventually found bottom in 50 feet very close inshore, next to two waterfalls. These proved handy the next day to top up our water, and we then carried on further east to the end of Uummannaq Fjord. 

The best way to find an anchorage seems to be to look for a river or stream on the chart and hope that it has left sufficient silt to fill up the bottomless fjord and so give a reasonable depth to anchor in. However, our echo sounder, rather a Mickey Mouse job, only read to 24 metres with deeper water shown by a second revolution. The trouble was that with a rock bottom, two times around the scale looked just the same as once around with 116 Annie looking east from Agpat island, Uummannaq fjord a soft bottom. Many’s the time when we didn’t know if we were in 15 metres or 39 metres, the difference between a possible and an impossible depth in which to anchor. 

all appeared to be blocked by stranded ice. Eventually, at the head of the fjord, it appeared to be reasonably ice free. The reason for this soon became clear when a strong east wind, blowing off the icecap, hit us. This had obviously been blowing for several days at the head of the fjord, clearing out the ice. We beat up to a bay which looked as though it would give us shelter from the wind. It did to a certain extent, but there were strong gusts from every direction. We found 50 feet almost on the beach, off two streams, but then had to lay a second anchor out to stop ourselves from swinging ashore. After another restless night we found we had picked up several hundred pounds of weed on the Bruce. On leaving I tried, with some difficulty, to raise this to the surface. Meanwhile Badger had left the shelter of the hills and the fresh easterly was blowing us, largely out of control, towards an island. Fear finds extra muscles and a great ball of weed came to the surface. Badger was again under command, and we forged out of the fjord while I picked seaweed off the anchor with the boathook. 

We were soon back among the ice, which seemed thicker than ever. The fresh breeze continued from the east and we quickly reduced the sail to keep our speed down and give us time to find a path through. In the end we found our best lead close inshore, where the water was too shallow for most of the ice. We had hoped to visit Uummannaq Island, but this meant crossing to the other side of the fjord, and from where we were it looked impassable. We continued on our way and on the evening of 1 August entered the Vaigat in patchy fog. We were heading for an anchorage at Sarqaq on the eastern shore of the Vaigat, and eventually had to leave the security of the Disko shore and head into the fog in order to find Sarqaq. As much by good luck as good judgement a prominent point emerged from the fog several hours later so that we knew where we were. After weaving an erratic course through thickening ice, we were fortunate to spot a bright light on our port beam. As this could only be the settlement at Sarqaq we headed for it, and when we were close to the shore houses appeared out of the fog. We anchored in the shallow bay with grounded growlers all around us. 

We set off next morning with a lot of brash ice about, but after a tortuous couple of miles we were back into fairly clear water and could set up the self-steering vane. We spent the next several days exploring anchorages in north-east Disko Bay. The most memorable of these was Pakitsoq Bay. Having spent the previous night in a very narrow inlet with a waterfall thundering by our ears we attempted to enter the inner fjord which leads almost up to the Greenland Icecap. The entrance, we found, was narrow and shallow with a considerable current flowing out. 

We thought that we’d give it a try and hoped to be able to find slack water near the edge. However only a short way in the water was rushing out at an estimated 8 knots and we were quickly pushed back. There was no room to turn, but by keeping our speed at less than that of the current we kept steerage way while emerging from the channel stern first. High water would seem to be the best time to try this passage. We then turned our attention to a bay on the east side of Pakitsoq. A reef seemed to run right the way across the entrance, but by sounding from the dinghy we found a narrow gap at one side of the reef. It was in this bay that Annie celebrated her birthday. We headed further south the next day to reach Illulissat/Jakobshavn, the largest town in the area. 

Illulissat is situated next to the ice fjord from which most of the icebergs we had recently been avoiding had emerged. A tightly packed mass of large icebergs, it is quite easy to believe that two million tons of ice a day are calved by the glacier — one of the wonders of the world. In fact amongst these bergs are some which would eventually end up on the Grand Banks in a year or two. The town has a population of 8000 — 4000 people and 4000 huskies. As we walked over to view the ice fjord a hooter in the town set the huskies howling, for all the world like wolves. This carried on for some minutes before stopping abruptly, as though someone had turned a switch.

From Jakobshavn we sailed across Disko Bay, stopping for the night at the Gron Islands and then sailing on to Aasiaat/Egedsminde the next day Here we met Firik Moller in his MFV Kivioq. She had been built by Knud Rasmussen for his seventh and last Thule expedition. When Firik took over as Harbourmaster of Nuuk he found her as a sunken wreck, but in surprisingly good condition. After a complete refit he was setting out with his wife and an experienced crew to attempt the North West Passage. Ice conditions appeared favourable and he hoped to be through in six weeks, if all went well.

It was now 10 August. Time was pressing, for the nights were drawing in and we had hoped to leave the ice behind before it went dark at night. We set off south from Aasiaat towards Nuuk. We left the shelter of the skerries that evening with the wind just west of south and foggy. By next morning the wind had risen to F 6 or 7 — another nasty sail. This was almost a re-run of our entrance to Uummannaq Fjord with more wind but fortunately with more scattered ice. Yet again we blessed our pram hood to say nothing of the rig. The wind eased by the afternoon and that evening we had to heave-to for three hours as it was too dark to make out the growlers. As the depression passed the wind veered to the north-west, but twelve hours later it again came round to the south-west. We beat resolutely south. The wind continued varying between south-east and south-west, from near calm to another brief gale. By this time we had, however, left most of the ice behind and had just the odd berg in sight when the fog cleared. 

With the sun rarely out we were relying on our RDF to give us an approximate position. There are not many RDF stations in Greenland, but they generally give a strong signal with a range of 100 to 150 miles. I have always regarded RDF fixes as a ‘sporting’ form of navigation, and this year we had given ourselves an additional handicap as the LCD frequency readout on our set had gone blank and we had been unable to repair it. After a spell of light winds off Maniitsoq the wind came round to the north at F 4, and we then had a fast run down to the entrance to Nuuk/Godthab. After seven days at sea we completed the 340 mile passage and anchored in Nuuk harbour. 

Our luck ran out in Nuuk. The mail that we expected at the post office had been lost and the following day we had a severe gale. We were lying to two anchors, but not getting as much protection from the town as we had hoped. When the CQR started to drag we set our Fisherman as a third anchor, which seemed to hold us. Astern of us, about 20 feet above the water, was a steel cable running from the shore to some moored trawlers and we didn’t fancy dragging into that. Several hours later, in a series of fierce squalls, the Fisherman and CQR dragged again. The Bruce didn’t appear to have moved, but would it be the next one? We decided to quit the anchorage and try and motor up to the quay where we would be safe — if we could get there. It was asking a lot of Badger’s 7hp, but with a scrap of mainsail sheeted in amidships to help the bow up into the wind we found that we could motor up to the anchor, so thought we’d give it a try. We recovered the CQR and Fisherman first: they had been fouled with discarded ropes, webbing and other debris. As I started to winch in the Bruce the handle slipped and gashed my cheek. Blood was everywhere, but the heavy rain soon washed it away and this was not the moment to get the F.lastoplast out. The last anchor came up and we motored ahead. A couple of squalls held us stationary for endless minutes, but eventually we gained in the lulls and made the shelter of the inner harbour. With relief we tied up, and on clearing the mud from the Bruce found embedded in it an empty bottle and a neatly coiled heaving line.

The other yacht in the harbour was French, a 34ft steel boat. They had sailed directly from Hudson Bay after wintering for ten months in the ice there. Bernard and Dominique intended to sail to the far north before spending another winter in the ice, this time north of the Arctic Circle. ‘Mad Frogs …?’ 

We had hoped to cruise around Godthaab Fjord, but time had run out and we left Nuuk as soon as the weather moderated, heading for Newfound land. A north-westerly wind gave us a head start and we had a good passage south. There wasn’t too much fog and we saw the Aurora most nights. After six days we sighted the Labrador and then carried on past Belle Isle to anchor in Griguet Harbour at the northern tip of Newfoundland. Like the Vikings a thousand years ago, we saw a country that looked lush and well-wooded compared with the land we had just left.

We called in at Grinquet Harbour so that we could visit the L’anse aux Meadows Viking site nearby. We were treated to warm Newfoundland hospitality and found that Hirta’s visit seven years previously was still well remembered. In the Straits of Belle Isle a few days later we saw our last iceberg as we sailed south towards Nova Scotia.