Back in Scotland

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since we got back from Greenland. The first weekend back in Blighty was spent in Dibden Purlieu at Dan & Georgie’s splendid wedding. It was a wonderful occasion presided over by John with the reception held in a marquee on the lawn of the Rectity.

Within 2 days Joe and Sarah got engaged on a speed boat on the Solent. All very romantic and reminiscent of our engagement a few hundred miles North West of the Cape Verde Islands.

The next weekend saw us back in Southampton for the boat show then up to London for Greenwich and some cultural including the Royal Observatory, the Franklin Exhibition and the Cutty Sark. The start of the week was pretty posh at the Royal College of Physicians with Alex.

A week later we were battling traffic to Edinburgh and the Weller’s to catch-up with ‘our man in Mallorca’. Lots going on with Richard and we wish him well in the coming weeks.

On Saturday night we sat down to dinner with 21 members of the Clan Kirkwood in a forest park near Aviemore. The occasion  was Roddy & Margaret’s 25th wedding anniversary. They were over from New Zealand and had summoned friends and family to celebrate. The mountain bikes came out the next morning and the mud splattered peloton terrorised the Sunday strollers in the forest and Loch side trails. Great fun.

By Sunday night we wee in Traighuaine and not a little jet lagged by our hectic socialising. Time to unwind. But then we discovered Aki Ásgeirsson’s boat in Kilmelford and that precipitated a wonderful chance encounter with our Icelandic friend who had looked after SHIMSHAL for two winters in Reykjavik and had inspired our life affirming trip to Scoresby Sound. He was just about to head, off single handed, for Bergen via the Caledonian Canal. It was our pleasure to whisk him off for lunch and take him to Ardfern to encourage him to invest in his yacht’s electronic inventory.

Thankfully the next few weeks are set to be less hectic but I’m sure It won’t be long before the next round of adventure.

Tea beneath a tea clipper

A cultural treat in Greenwich. The Royal Observatory, the Franklin Exhibition at the National Maritime Museum and then the Cutty Sark. Finally a brilliant river trip from Greenwich to Westminster.

Arctic and maritime history

Spending the day in Greenwich stocking up on Arctic and Maritime history. It's the Sir John Franklin Exhibition at the National Maritime Museum and the stunning Harrison clocks at the Royal Observatory. Next stop the Cutty Sark.

Beware this is a 25 minute Slide Show!

The link below is a 25 minute slide presentation of our summer 2017 cruise from North West Iceland to Greenland's East and West Coasts. It includes a drone video of Hamborgerland and a time lapse (x20) sequence of our transit through Prins Christian Sund. The slideshow finishes in Aasiaat which is the capital of North Greenland where Shimshal is soon to be hauled out for the winter.

Greenland 2017 from Simon Currin on Vimeo.

5th Greenland FB Post

4th Greenland FB post

3rd Greenland FB post

South Greenland FB Post

East Greenland FB Post

Video of our anchorage at Apammiut

Video of our anchorage at Apammiut and the mountains of Hamborgerland, West Greenland.

Apammiut from Simon Currin on Vimeo.

All Done!

All Done

The overalls are neatly folded and packed and the last hose clip has been tightened. Sally has blitzed the boat with her vacuum and the bilges would be gleaming if it weren't for the pink antifreeze sloshing around to protect the pumps The dehumidifier is set to 'Sahara' to suck the last bit of moisture out of the boat. Tomorrow morning we throttle the dehumidifier back to a more sensible and temperate setting before closing the hatch, turning the key and taking the taxi to the airport.

The sailing season is all too short in these northern waters and we have had the best of it. Our season started with a spring cruise from Reykjavik to the wintery mountains of Iceland's West Fjords. We left Iceland at the earliest opportunity as decreed by the ice and were one of the first pleasure boats to make a landfall on Greenland's east coast this year. We squeaked through Prins Christian Sund the first day it opened. We then had all of August to meander our way up the coast. Now we are in Aasiaat- the capital of North Greenland at 68 42N. An unglamorous Arctic town which bustles with hunters and young families eking out an existence in a harsh and unforgiving landscape.

With the nights drawing in at great speed it's definitely time to turn our backs on our floating home and leave her to face the winter in the care of Sisak Technik - the Aasiaat shipyard. We have done all that we can to prepare her for her ordeal. We have injected strange coloured fluids into her veins and cosseted all the electrical and mechanical systems.

What next for team Shimshal? Sally and I are already getting excited about sailing south to new continents. We hope to launch in June and potter back south to  Maniitsoq waiting for a perfect weather window to cross to Labrador. If we can finesse it with the Canadian authorities we would like to make our landfall in the Tongat Mountains National Park and creep south down the Labrador coast to Battle Harbour before crossing to Newfoundland.

Friends have recommended Lewisport so we will probably leave the boat there before continuing south along Newfoundland's east and south coasts. Our plan, at the moment, is to haul out in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the end of next September. So Shimshal and her crew have much to look forward to.

Before then though Sally and I are most looking forward a cycling trip to Tuscany where we hope not to see icebergs, glaciers and frigid fogs. Life is at it's best when it's full of contrasts!

Decommissioning Days

Decommissioning Days

For the first 3 days in Aasiaat there was unrelenting rain, some wind and Scotch mist. We began to fear that we would never get the sails off and dried for the winter. 

A brief respite was forecast for the 4th day and so, immediately after breakfast, all hands were on deck to dry and drop the head sails. Folding a socking great foresail on a narrow deck is, in the skipper's experience, a time to take a low profile as making a three dimensional shape fold flat is not always intuitive. Today he was allowed only to control the halyard and the rate of drop and was thus able to watch, with amusement, the rest of team Shimshal battle it out.

All ended well with the sails bagged and parked in front of the dehumidifier to desicate them to winter storage levels.

Next job was to wrestle the boat cover in place which we completed just as the patter of drizzle returned.

We then took on the indoor jobs of winterising the 2 heads and the two saltwater taps which went without a glitch. With seacock closed we managed to squeeze my oil pump hose down as far as the seacock and backfill with antifreeze. With a jug coupled to the distal pipes we then pumped antifreeze through the taps where we caught it and recycled it into the toilet and bilge pump. We then reconnected everything so that when we come back all we have to do is open the seacocks and away we go!

With the boat now in bits Sally went off to the fire station and bartered a fill for the dive cylinder. A packet of filter coffee and a bag of sugar is the going rate in Aasiaat. She also humped all our home bound gear to the hotel as we have decided to move off the boat for the last 2 nights to get it as dry as possible for the winter layup.

After lunch I attempted to fix the leak from the calorifier with judicious use of some anti-clockwise wound PTFE tape. I'm keeping my fingers crossed in the hope that we do not get that irritating trickle seepage next year.

Meanwhile Sally got us an invitation to a free coffee and cakes event to commemorate the arrival of fibre optic broadband in Aasiaat. We had seen the French cable laying vessel L'Isle des Aux on our trip north and speculated that it might be laying fibre. Sure enough they have, today, completed the laying of a cable from Iceland to Qaqortoq and on to Halifax with a spur up to Aasiaat. It was great to see the town celebrating the arrival of such a crucial bit of infrastructure. At home we just moan that it's slow to get to the countryside. By my reckoning this 30mm diameter cable (they had a sample on the coffee table) must be 3,600 miles long as that's the sailing distance from Reykjavik to Aasiaat and then on to Halifax!

After Sally repaired a rip in the spray hood we called it quits for the day and moved into the hotel for showers, a bed on land and, briefly, super fast broadband.

Tomorrow's jobs are now few. Sally is going to manicure her galley having already drawn up an inventory of remaining food stores and sell-by dates. The boys will disconnect 2/3 of the batteries leaving them to face the winter cold fully charged which should mean that they wont freeze in the expected temperatures. The remaining 1/3 we will keep on trickle charge. That way we can leave the bilge pumps on for the 2 months the boat will be in the water before she is lifted. The latter being an insurance condition.

More or less the last job will be to pump antifreeze through the 4 fresh water taps taking care to ensure we do both the hot and cold circuits. 

Our last few days in Greenland have been

and will continue to be busy but Sally and I are already making plans for a return in the spring whilst the sea ice is still here to go dog sledding and snowmobiling. They say the weather here in March and April is stunning!