Greenland again

Keen to escape the searing heat of a Scottish summer, I returned to East Greenland this year.
For anyone that loves travelling and paddling in wild places, it's a true paradise.
Normally the short summer brings settled calm weather, but this year we were bedevilled by breezy days, and an unreliable but alarming weather forecast. This restricted our movements somewhat, but we still found some remarkable places.
I won't give a blow by blow account, but if you want to go, contact Martin.

 The scene at Tasiilaq camp site.

 We had some tricky landings.

 But they gave great campsites.

  Old graves prompt some thought on what life here was like even relatively recently.

The remains of "Bluie east two", an abandoned US air force base, provide one of the most surreal landscapes I've even seen. It was abandoned almost overnight, and the toxic content of tens of thousands of barrels of fuel allowed to leak into the ground. The Greenlanders had no say in the matter at all.

Greenland, Part 3

Camping in Greenland is a delight. At night we could listen to grumbles, crashes and bangs from the icebergs. Often this would be mixed with the noises of whales blowing. Most evenings we spent whale watching.

One evening we had a more nosy visitor.

And sometimes we just enjoyed the sights.

All in all a wonderful place, enjoyed with fantastic company.

Greenland, part 2

A large part of the attraction of arctic paddling is the ice. It's also dangerous stuff, with the potential for exploding icebergs, calving glaciers and drifting pack to make progress impossible. There was relatively little of it about this year, but it remained spectacular.

The glacier in the background here is coming straight down from the icecap. There are hundreds of miles of ice stretching from here to the west coast.
Picture the Cuillins of Skye, with glaciers, and stretching on seemingly endlessly.

We did visit some small settlements, which gave a limited opportunity to restock.