WAITING

20 July 2014 » Uncategorized | respond

Tug Tandberg Polar and barge Jensen has now settled in for a little wait up the coast of Greenland, more precise in Aasiaat inside Disco island. From here we will have about 10 days of effective sailing into Cambridge Bay but most likely we will have to move slow and possibly pretty much also in ziczag among the melting driftice.
The ice is still pretty dense inside the final 4 days of sailing distance before Cambridge Bay, and the ice melting this year looks pretty average. That means much less than average 10 years ago, as the total volume of the arctic ice cap is diminishing gradually, as we all know.

Days here in Aasiaat are spent fixing this and that onboard as well as preparing stuff for the coming lifting operation of Maud. There is always something to do when dealing with a 50 years old Tug and our technical guys have full hands.

Still there is time for a walk around the little town, housing aprox 3000 people, which makes it the third largest in Greenland. Outside in the fjord area the most noticable difference from home are the icebergs drifting by. Majestic and overwhelming. The local greenlenders are in great majority in this town and as Stig and I strolled around last night we experience the village as a pure natural mess. All around you see remains from both winter and summer activities scattered around where people have left them. No one really cares that much, they just simply live, and laugh and seem pretty happy. They care for their children in a particular way, and carry the sadness of a lost culture, in silence – just like the nature around them.

Our final destination is getting closer but still it feels a bit unreal to imagine we will lay longside old Maud within a few weeks to come. Its been a long process and also a long sail from Norway, and it all feels a bit abstract as we have spent all this time in the same physical surrounding, sleeping in the same beds, during this time of travel since we left the bay of Vettre. aprox.2400 Nautical Miles ago (4500km). In one way time has stood still, in another way time has not existed at all.

I watch our Tug outside the window right now, from where I sit in the sailors home, sailing around a little island in the harbour where we will tie up for some days to come. Lets keep in touch.

jan

Stig and Eirik prepare ropes for arrival Aasiaat.
aasiat-approach