moving piem

Blocked by the ice

Our two younger crew members went off the boat in Narsaq, and Carlos, a french cook working at the embassy in Tunis, joined us. We first went to visit Ipiutaq, the farm of Kalista, Agathe and their daughter Ina. Agathe is French and Kalista is Greenlandic. A few years ago, they took on the adventure of starting a farm in South Greenland. It was really nice to discover their life, and to spend some time on a solid ground.

We then sailed to the North, and soon ended up blocked by the ice in a narrow fjord, at 2AM. After a night watching out the boat, we took out the ice poles in the morning and started pushing. After about two hours, we managed to reach the open water again.

We had a good weather sailing northwards up to Nuuk, despite a thick fog that prevented us from seeing the huge glaciers coming down to the sea. At 4AM in the morning, we arrived in the harbour of Nuuk, capital of Greenland.

Arriving in Narsaq, South Greenland

We reached Cape Farewell — Uummannarsuaq in Greenlandic — around June 1st. Luckily, we had very calm sea and no wind, but a lot of ice. The navigation in the pack ice was amazing. We could observe many seals of at least three different species (ringed, bearded, and harp seals).

After three days sailing South then West to go around the cape and avoid the pack ice, with only very little fuel left in the tanks, we finally managed to reach the coast and entered Bredefjord, sailing towards Narsaq.

More than one week later than planned, we touched the ground for the first time after two weeks at sea. It was really moving to see my brother Eric, France and my two nieces together again.

Enjoying a bit of sun

Since Islay and all the way to Cape Farewell, the southernmost point of Greenland, we didn't meet a single boat. The weather was not very good. We had a lot of front wind and sometimes really rough sea.

On top of that, we had a few technical issues. First sea water in the fuel tanks, so we had to go down at least twice a day in the engine room to clean up the filters. We had a little bit of salt water in the drinking water as well, which is not very pleasant. And we managed to block the main sail winder, so we had to tie the main sail to the mast.

Three days before reaching it, there was a big storm at Cape Farewell, but luckily the low went up North, mostly avoiding us. Those two weeks at sea were beautiful and memorable. It was my first time so far away from a shore, and I was surprised how different time and space can be out there.

Sunset in the Irish Sea

On May 13th, surrounded by a few boats and kayaks, six of us left Brest: Eric, my brother and our captain, Vincent and Lea, a couple of young French people, and Arthur and Arnoul, 17 years old, two young recrue from the French military naval school.

Stopping by in Scilly islands, we first went to Limerick Harour, Ireland, were a film making crew was waiting for us. We had a beautiful day filming the boat amongs the thousands of guillemots who live in Saltee islands.

Two big lows were moving across North Atlantic, so instead of going West, we decided to sail East and then North across the Irish Sea.

Before arriving in Islay, Eric managed to repair the compass of the auto-pilot, so after a few days of training at steering the wheel, we could rely on our old friend Robertson to do it for us. We spent only about half a day moored in Port Ellen before heading West to cross the Atlantic.