YES ! We are in Greenland ! Fantastic to finally be here.

We arrived to Ittoqqortoormiit (lets just call it Itto…) approx three weeks ago. Itto, the home of legendary polar bear hunters and dog sledge drivers is a very nice small village with friendly people and were you can get a hold of the most necessary things you actually need; meet, weapons, dogs and fuel. This will be our closest town during winter, in fact it is the only town in this area, so if you would like to come and visit us – book your ticket to Itto !
It is beautiful up here and the landscape is breathtaking; huge ice bergs, high mountains and enormous glaciers. It is really cool to realize that this will be our view for a year!!
Scoresbysund is a big area, and we have been spending some time to gather useful information about this fjordsystem and to get valuable tips from local hunters for potentially place to overwinter. It is really not easy to find a good mooring (especially when the wind is strong…) in front of Itto, something we quickly discovered one morning when our anchor did not hold and we were drifting away! Thanks to Heimir Hardarson (and his crew), skipper of “Opal”, an Icelandic sailing boat that has been sailing around in this area all summer, we anchored in Amdrupshavn, a protected mooring close to the village. Here we could take some time to do some needed maintenance and work on board.
We sailed around for some days to discover the fjord, and ended up here in Hekla Havn were we are now. A very well protected small place with an amazing view and huge icebergs drifting by. It would have been the perfect mooring for the overwintering if it was a bit closer to the village.
Unfortunately this place is a bit far away, and is inaccessible during the winter. But we enjoy it for now while doing the last needed preparation of the boat before the sea start freezing for good. We now have the stove working, and it make a huge difference! Humidity is gone away and we are not living in a fridge anymore! Much more comfortable to enjoy the area 🙂
Today we had a visit from the guides of the last tourist boat sailing around in this fjord, and they brought us some fresh beer! We will then enjoy them under the polar lights that we can see almost every night – life is so hard in the arctic…;) The days are getting shorter and shorter, and it should not be so long before the sea-ice is coming, so we will soon sail back to the village to buy the last stuff that we need for the winter. At this point we are still not sure where we will have our mooring during winter, but hopefully we will find the perfect place 🙂
In the future, we will try to be better in updating our blog…. All the best from Greenland, have a nice weekend !