How can it be that on one hand it feels like this voyage has been going on for ever and yet it seems to be going so quickly? In 8 days we will, if the weather allows it, catch a flight from Aasiaat to Kangerlussaq and then a connection onto Copenhagen. Finally EasyJet will bring us home and back from the wilderness. As you can imagine this isn't the cheapest set of airport connections on the planet!
But the voyage isn't over yet. We are resting in Sisimiut today and tomorrow while some forecast headwinds pass through and then we will make the last 120 mile dash north to Aasiaat. With luck we will be there earlyish on Monday to begin the painstaking task of winterising Shimshal for, although we are heading for more temperate climes, she faces a long harsh Arctic winter. Aasiaat will, once winter comes, be frozen in until late May and we need to do all that we can to protect Shimshal's systems from the biting cold.
In his day job Tim decommissioned a nuclear power station and we are all set to squeeze him back into his overalls and set to work decommissioning Shimshal for her long, dark winter at 68 degrees 42 minutes north.
I say squeeze him into his overalls because the food on this trip had been exceptionally good. The provisioning, resourcefulness and ingenuity that has gone into keeping us all fed with fine and varied foods is quite extraordinary. Most days we have fresh baked bread and that's rarely a bog standard plain white loaf. Yesterday, for instance, it was ciabatta rolls with home made 'Heather' burgers. Fresh baked cakes pop out of the oven regularly and, of course, there's always lashings of fresh coffee and pancakes for breakfast. My only "complaint" is that I'm on a boat full of tea drinkers, apart from Heather who drinks nothing, and so have nobody to share my Rwandan coffee aeropress creations with. Rod, if you are reading this, you are welcome back anytime to keep the skipper company at coffee time!
Being rafted up against two local boats here in Sisimiut means that we can't leave Shimshal unattended in case one of our inside boats decides to leave. All the more important because Sisak IV seems to be some kind of ice hardened search and rescue boat. So we go ashore in shifts. Heather and Tim have just gone ashore for showers and Internet. What would Tilman have made of that?
I am resuming our writing as it was interrupted by a 60' steel trawler which has just squeezed inside us to join the raft. As soon as he had manoeuvred into position they towed the broken engined whaler (Julianna) away completing a delicate shuffle of innumerable boats to make space for her alongside.
We just got the Greenland weather forecast which seems to confirm PredictWind's suggestion of strong, indeed gale force, northerlies which will probably delay our departure for Aasiaat until Sunday. No matter, it remains warm and sunny here and the crew are cleaner than they have been for weeks and seem content with what Sisimiut has to offer.
