Teddytoarctic2026.blogspot.com

                                                                             Pic by Eddy For the leg home, a fresh crew.  Left to right: Eddy, James, me, Rory, Andrew. Eddy Stocker, 64, a North Irishman who moved with his wife to the Clifden area a few years ago. He was a merchant marine engineer, and is highly capable at solving mechanical & electrical problems. He has his own boat, a 34 ft Moody bilge keeler and has sailed her to Scotland and down to Cork. He's been in the Fastnet, and twice in the Round Ireland race.  James Golden, 60, also Northern Irish, keeps two homes, one in Belfast, the other near Clifden. He sails a 33 ft Westerly Discus bilge keeler, in recent years accompanying Eddy to Scotland & Cork. Now semi retired he is a civil engineer and lawyer.  Rory H...

 From Greenland we ran straight south down the 23rd degree longitude to Isafjordur. A strong following wind, F7 in the middle 15 hours, and again approaching the headlands off Isafjordur, 255 NM in 47 hours. Josh was pretty thrilled with that. Greenland had 24 hours daylight when we left: at Isafjordur we had night and a few hours of stars. Such is the difference that 4 degrees of longitude makes. Burgers & sauna at Isafjordur. A night at Sudureyri, Westfjords. Then 160 NM south round the Snaefellsness peninsula to Reykjavik. Little or no wind: the engine ran the whole time. On the way, our astounding encounter with the solar eclipse. We caught cod in the Iceland waters, including the biggest I've caught, a very plump cod 29" long. These waters are teeming with cod. Josh flew out 2 days ago and is now back at home in New Zealand. Hue is now on the bus to Akureyri, to join a Polish boat we had earlier met, for the run to the Faeroes, possibly further. 7 years ago I sailed w...

 Off the SW tip of the Westfjords we stopped to watch the eclipse. With special glasses we saw the moon begin to take a bite out of the sun. As the eclipse neared totality the sea cliffs lost color, becoming washed out, grey. Then the sun was blocked out completely: within seconds the twilight turned to deep deep blackness. The speed of this change was shocking. Then we had 2.5 minutes of darkness. In the distance was the twilit evening of the eclipse rushing away from us into obscurity, and then in the opposite direction the dawn of the eclipse low low on the horizon rushing towards us. This dawn grew & spread with enormous rapidity. Suddenly a tiny fragment of the sun gleamed brilliantly on the far side of the moon. Within seconds the blackness disappeared and the washed out twilight returned. From twilight to night in seconds, and from night to twilight in seconds.  The slowness of the moon crossing the sun in the sky absolutely contrasted with the violent transitions w...

 One stop was at Sandbach Halvo, a peninsula. An Inuit told us that biologists worked there. We dropped anchor off the sandy beach, the next morning rowed in, were promptly greeted by an inquisitive fox. Went up to the ramshackle cabin; a note on the door said they were out with the auks. We saw them up the mountain and joined them. Jerome, French, the ornithologist in charge, has been coming here, 14x in the last 20 years. With him was Eva, North Carolina, USA, and Pauline, of Brussels, Belgium. There were here 5 weeks total, and they had already seen 40 polar bears. All 3 carried their own rifles. Anyway, this post is about the colony of 200,000 lesser auks they were studying.                 Blizzard of auks whirling past high up on a steep slope of talus - dizzying                                     Eva with auk chick, weighing & taking samples ...

  Muskox, shedding qiviut Fox, full of curiosity & life Found a goose egg, to his delight Dead Arctic fox. The white coat indicates that he died in the winter. The purity of his whiteness made him difficult to photograph. Ptarmigan. Smaller than a hen. We got close to many, usually mothers with chicks.  All pics by Josh

This article is by Josh.  Apart from the obvious necessities of vessel maintenance, navigation and watch keeping, the success or failure of a sailing expedition is heavily dependent upon crew morale. Sleep well. Eat well. Shit? Well! The holy trinity Good passage making. Personally, I sleep very well on passage, and at anchor. Better than at home to be honest. I will not provide details of the third part of the equation, but the central pillar deserves particular attention from this trip. Eat well, indeed we did! Cooking on a small boat, with one burner and dwindling supplies offers a challenge to the chef of the day. This challenge is enjoyable however, especially with such hungry and appreciative crewmates. Cooking and eating foods foraged from the land or sea enhance the overall experience, and connection to the area. Pressure cooker securement mk I. Free range organic ice; first use of Nick's geological hammer, yet to strike gold. Fine Venezuelan rum on the (glacial) rocks. Eid...

 I must've taken hundreds of photos of icebergs. Josh woke me up for this one. Well worth it! We anchored on a piece of sea ice, with the intention of spending the night attached to it. The wind picked up at 11:30pm during my watch and we were swept against another piece,  wedged between them, with icebergs behind. Time to break anchor and move fast!

I enjoy foraging for mushrooms back in New Zealand and didn't even occur to me to see any in Greenland but to my surprise I recognised two edible types of mushroom. I'm aware that what you know is edible in one country could be deadly in a foreign land. The puffballs were easy enough to be sure of and can't be confused with anything else. However, I recognised what I thought as birch boletes, but the sizes of birch trees at home vs the miniature low lying bushes in Greenland are so different. Greenland is a harsh environment so everything needs to adapt. I was 95% sure but decided to only take photos of them. I don't ever want to put our lives in danger for the sake of a few mushrooms. We went to a few more locations looking for qivuit stuck to bushes, wool off Musk oxen, as they graze on willow and birch bushes, and saw more potential birch boletes. I decided to pick them and confirm if they're truly what I thought they are with the locals. I sliced and laid them o...