GALWAY HOOKER TO GREENLAND

Terry Irvine

Having agreed to join Paddy Barry on the 40ft Galway Hooker St Patrick on his 1993 trip to North West Greenland, I was disappointed to miss the first three weeks due to delays in the sale of my farm. The revised plan was that I would join the vessel at Nuuk (Godthaab)' her first port of call in Greenland, and thence sail the remainder of the expedition northwards and home again to Ireland.

As it turned out, I missed two gales, losing spare fuel canisters from the foredeck and having the compass washed out of the cockpit. There followed a few anxious days with dropping oil pressure on the engine and liaising with the `Ice Recco' -- a twin Otter ice patrol aircraft -- to find a lead through the loose pack-ice to Nuuk.

As St Patrick was making her way northwards in Davis Strait so I was flying southward from Sondre Stromfjord, feeling like Indiana Jones in the small twin-engine aircraft with half the seats removed for cargo, the overhead lockers full of survival suits, drinking coffee poured from a Thermos flask by an Innuit air hostess. The view over the ice cap, brown tundra and long lines of silt-laden glacial meltwater flowing out into the sea, was unforgettable.

The next three days were spent waiting in the Seaman's Home, as previously agreed with Paddy, for St Patrick to arrive. My only luggage was two bottles of Paddy (Irish Whiskey), a toothbrush in my inside jacket pocket and an Access card which proved invaluable as it was accepted everywhere - with bottles of beer at œ4 each, it was badly needed on several occasions. The Paddy, unfortunately, had to be left in reception because the Seaman's Home, as well as being a Godsend, is also Godfearing and consequently, all the Seamen's Homes in Greenland are dry establishments. The remainder of my luggage turned up two days later with the apologies of SAS Airlines.

The engine trouble on St Patrick turned out to be a broken crankshaft and while repairs were carried out by the local shipyard, the crew went their various ways - Davy McBride and myself going out for a day's fishing in a 10ft RIB owned by Wayne Harden from Florida who had single-handed to Nuuk in a 30ft double-ended cutter. Wanderer IV was also alongside -- her American skipper quoted his reason for coming to Greenland as "Too much Tilman man, too much Tilman".

Our day's fishing proved highly successful, we caught a lot of fjord cod on feathers and had a few worrying moments when some Minke whales surfaced nearby. A 10ft RIB doesn't feel very big when even small whales start swimming around you! The fjord cod proved quite tasty even though they break up badly on cooking. Local fishermen prefer the sea cod, caught in deeper water.

With the engine fixed it was time to do what we had come for -- head north. Our crew of seven were Paddy, civil engineer; Adrian Spence, barrister; Sean Mullan, teacher; Harry Connolly, cameraman; Jimmy Conlon, industrial chemist; Davy McBride, estate agent; Gearoid O'Riain, student and myself, farmer.

We motored most of the way across the Arctic Circle to Sisimuit. My first bergs at sea and sailing the last twelve hours made me feel that at last I was getting out here and doing it instead of sitting at home in front of the fire reading David Lewis, Tilman or Willy de Roos.

The harbour on Sisimuit was filthy with rotten seal skins, plastic bags and oil. However a visit to the Hotel Sisimuit was good fun with prices encouraging moderation, the highlight of the evening being a punch-up among the locals with a young woman, equally inebriated, singing a peace song in the middle of the brawl.

At 70N we were now in the Arctic high pressure region and had permanent daylight. The high pressure meant we had glorious weather but had to do a lot of motoring, and the daylight made us feel much safer with regard to ice, particularly the bergy bits, which at approximately one tonne per cubic metre, could do serious if not terminal damage to our hull despite it being aluminium sheathed around the waterline.

We motored to Godhavn in the south of Disko Island. Paddy, Harry and Jimmy went hill-walking and had some hairy moments on some very loose rock. The rest of us went fishing and by drifting down several times over the same `hole' soon had a good haul of fjord cod, later to be fish pie. The we continued north, mostly motoring, occasionally sailing, dodging large bergs, and noticed that passing to windward we would usually avoid any debris or brash floating about. Bergs were well spread out and we had no trouble keeping more or less on course. Watches were 4 hours on, 8 hours off, two men, one hand-steering with St Patrick's large tiller, the other doing plots using the GPS (which never let us down), making tea or spiked coffee, keeping a lookout and admiring wonderful sunsets in which the sun went down, touched the horizon and came straight back up again. Judging distances was a problem and `distance to waypoint' often hard to believe, the air -- dust and pollution free -- was so clear.

During the next week we visited a trapper's hut on the Svarton Huk Peninsula and a settlement called Proven where the huskies, redundant during the summer months, were tied out to stakes and fed about twice a week with raw fish (probably fjord cod!). Apparently, there are toddlers killed by these dogs every year. The animals must be tethered by law, and are only permitted north of the Arctic Circle. Unfortunately Innuit children are given a lot of freedom, and some of the younger ones wander into the middle of the dogs and are eaten. None of us will ever forget the haunting howls of the animals -- it just takes one to start off and they all take up the eerie chorus.

Onward to 73N and Upernavik, a large town by Greenland standards, which boasts a hospital (the last) and a KNI store which sells hardware, basic clothing, fishing gear and has a supermarket. KNI prices were the same as Nuuk despite being much further north. Most non-work type clothing is bought by mail-order.

A fibreglass motorboat with well-fendered bow pushed any curious bergs out of the harbour to keep the quay wall free for the ferries. The arrival of these coasters was quite an event in the town and crowds would turn out in the middle of the night (in daylight) to meet their arrival.

Also in the harbour was a converted Baltic fishing vessel, replanked and aluminium sheathed, owned by Arved Fuchs the polar explorer. Our interest in his ship was rewarded with an invitation on board, a tour of the vessel, then coffee and crack. Arved and his German crew were later to successfully transit the North West Passage. Adrian Spence was particularly impressed by the visit and gained some ideas for the refit of his Bristol Pilot Cutter Madcap.

The plan now was to go north into Melville Bay and try for Thule (pronounced `Toolay') or, ice permitting, cross the Great North Water to Lancaster Sound. I particularly wanted to try for Beechey Island in Lancaster Sound as I had seen a documentary about three graves there from the Franklin expedition. We set off to have a go -- ice reports were not particularly encouraging but we had to try.

Leaving Upernavik under sail we met a local man, Peter Aronson, who took us on a beautiful inshore trip through a much higher density of bergs than we had previously experienced to his island home of Tugsuaaq. He agreed to join us as ice pilot for the attempt on Melville Bay and Thule, but first we had to call at Kuvd Lorssuaq as the climbers in the party wanted to attempt the Devil's Thumb. It was from the foot of this vertical rock pllar that the whaling captains would survey Melville Bay to see if the ice was clear enough to get through to the `Great North Water', a great ice-free polymia and home to scores of whales.

Two days later, on 2 August, we were in the middle of sea-ice, following ever decreasing leads until we came to a dead end at 74°53'N. We had given it our best shot, a Galway Hooker is not designed to survive being `nipped' by sea-ice and we were always very aware of how exposed the prop was to damage by small pieces of loose ice. A call to Bracknell weather centre via Portishead Radio told us we were in 5/10 pack with 8/10 ahead. It was time to leave this foggy, grey, horizonless area, turn south and make our way home, visiting some of the places we had missed on the way north. First we headed for Tugsuaaq to drop Peter off, then Umanaaq to take stock and possibly celebrate.

The next ten days or so were spent using Umanaaq as a base for climbing trips, walking, photography, letters home, very welcome showers and, as the heads on St Patrick consist of a rubber bucket on the foredeck, the pleasure of being able to take a bit more time performing the body's more basic functions.

In Umanaaq we met some Scottish people on a kayaking trip -- and we thought we were mad! We compared notes on mossie bites and creams and compared gear, occasionally having to break our conversation to `pole off' shoal draft bergy bits that had come in over the protective wire boom strung outside the harbour. For anyone considering a trip to Greenland, Umanaaq is an excellent base from which to operate.

A weekend trip to the Island of Upernivik (the name is quite common) of Tilman fame was highlighted for me by the noise of ice cracking and tinkling around the boat. We were on anchor in mist and pouring rain, and I lay on my bunk two feet from the stove and listening to the incredible noises of the brash ice breaking up. This came from bergs which had gone aground in deeper water and were now disintegrating. It was mid-August and the bergs were in a very dangerous condition after the warm weather we had been having.

Bergs with arches were not that common and an arch with enough water underneath to allow a boat to pass through was rare indeed. So when we saw one I persuaded Adrian to accompany me in the inflatable to pass through it -- all this to be captured on video by Harry. But as we approached the noise of the small outboard caused chunks of ice to start falling off the berg. Suddenly half the arch, weighing God knows how many tonnes, fell into the water near us. We decided to beat a retreat to the mothership only to find her `red lining' in the same direction as us, frightened of the unseen two-thirds of the berg making an appearance underneath her. Imagine our disappointment when we eventually got back on board to find the whole scene had been shot on `Stand by'!

Leaving Umanaaq for good we proceeded west along the Nugassuaq Peninsula. Paddy, Harry, Jimmy and Sean walked the old sled route across to the south coast where we met them with St Patrick. We were now at the entrance to the Vaigat, supposed to be a bowling alley of bergs calved from the Illulisat Glacier in Disko Bay. Bergs there were, and plenty of them, but they gave us no problems despite the fact that we were now getting a few hours of darkness around midnight.

A visit to the eerie, uninhabited coalmining town of Qutqligssat on the North coast of Disko had us poking in the empty houses, schools and workshops of a community which, in 1973, had become `not economically viable' and had simply taken their belongings and left.

August 17 found us in Illulisat (Jakobshavn). This ended the second leg of our trip, Harry departed, and Johnny Rooney arrived with spare parts, mail and news from home. The Royal Greenland fish processing plant gave us use of cafeteria, showers and laundry -- good to have clean clothes even if they did smell of fish from the tumble drier.

You can walk to the Illulisat Glacier from town itself and quite a few tourists come to do just that. Many of us sat and quietly watched huge bergs break off the main glacier and slowly make their way out to sea, sometimes overturning in the process. It is also possible to take a helicopter trip on to the top of the glacier, though none of our crew did so. For anyone considering a trip to Greenland, a circumnavigation of Disko and visit to the Illulisat Glacier would certainly make the effort involved well worthwhile.

The nights were drawing in, and ice on the harbour water in the mornings, although probably fresh melt-water, showed temperatures were dropping. Time to push on.

A quick visit to Aasiat, a meal and clean-up in the Seaman's Home, a chat with some Danish girls working there and we were off again. The inshore route around Hamborgerland, through patchy fog but thankfully little ice, completed the 200 miles to Manitsoq (Sukkertopen) where Johnny, Adrian, Jimmy and myself treated ourselves to whale steaks in the hotel, which had magnificent views over the harbour. The steaks were excellent and as a beef farmer myself I felt I couldn't criticize the fishermen for filling what is a tightly enforced quota.

Then a hundred miles to Nuuk, which we entered in fog, engine running to provide power for the radar. Most of us had read Tilman's exploits, and a visit to the Kristinemut was a must. Order is now kept in the establishment by part Innuit bouncers. Perfect examples of hybrid vigour, these men are as wide as they were are and carry out their duties efficiently and with minimum fuss.

Going south, calling at Paamiut, Arsuk and Qaqortoq was a question of motoring along the coast, guessing shapes of icebergs and dodging bergy bits. During the day, providing a good look-out was kept, it was fairly safe. At night, in occasional fog, thumping the unseen bergy bits, it was definitely dangerous -- so much so that we changed to day sailing only. From the delights of sailing in the midnight sun, to the dread of hitting unseen ice at night, this short leg was quite the most worrying of the trip.

Day sailing took the pressure off. On 2 September we visited the hot spring at Unartoq. A memorable dip was had by all, sitting in a hot freshwater pool with majestic icebergs aground in the sea only a couple of hundred yards away. Next day found us in Augpilotoq tied up against the now familiar wooden pile-type quay, surrounded by Scores of kids eating all the Polo mints we could hand out. When we tired of them jumping the five feet or so onto the coach roof I made a sign for sleep with back of hand on cheek and they very kindly left us alone for the night.

The fifty mile trip up Prins Christian Sund was marred by continuous rain and very low cloud. The fjord must be truly impressive in good weather, particularly from a cruise ship. On the occasions we could see up the high sides, the view and the fact that we were dodging Cape Farewell made this route well worthwhile.

At the end of Prins Christian Sund is a Danish weather-station. As this was our last port-of-call before crossing the Atlantic to Ireland we visited the five Danes manning the post. In their accommodation we were given tea and pastries and were most gratified to see in the visitor's book, only a few pages previously, the signatures of Bill Tilman and his crew.

We made our way out of the tricky little harbour into fresh wind and seas. After an anxious first night getting clear of the coast and its attendant ice problems we had an uneventful ten day sail home, arriving in Dun Laoghaire on 18 September 1993.

Postscript

Designed originally as a load-carrier, bringing turf to the Islands off the west coast of Ireland, St Patrick was easily able to accommodate the vast quantity of supplies needed for such a trip. The advantage of her sheer brute strength and simplicity of rig was balanced by the fact that she needed a crew of six or seven to maintain crew comfort and get the climbers ashore in good shape for the hills.

Whilst the summer is obviously the best and only time a sailing vessel can visit Greenland, the whole place is set up for winter. The idea of overwintering in a well-found, suitable vessel, seeing what in summer were redundant dogs and sleds in action, and living among such hospitable people, does have a certain attraction.

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