PADDLER 66
PADDLER 66
Thomas didn ’ t speak English , and my Greenlandic is embarrassingly inadequate , but I eventually conveyed my need for a Greenlandic paddle . He told me to return in an hour , which I duly did to find him sanding a plank of wood that was starting to look a tad Greenlandic . Another hour , and I had myself a proper Greenlandic paddle ! This is one of the many incredibly positive moments that sums up Greenland for me – such a great bunch of people with a never-give-up attitude and a willingness to help out .
And , incredibly , the paddle worked brilliantly . It weighed almost 1.5kg – most ‘ modern ’ paddles are under one kg – but was comfortable to hold for long periods and seemed to spread the stress of paddling across my whole upper body instead of fixating on my elbows or shoulders . My average speed also seemed consistent with the Euro-style paddles- staying at around 7 km per hour even after 12 hours of paddling . It seems thousands of years of virtually unchanged design are for a reason .
INCREDIBLE PART OF THE WORLD
And then came Melville Bay . What an incredible part of the world . The first couple of days continued with glorious sunshine and great camp spots – albeit further between . I was in radio contact with the boat to check on ice conditions and camping spots , which was working out fine . Then came a long 45km slog between headlands – the icecap on the mainland to my right came directly out onto the sea , and there was too much ice – both sea ice and icebergs from the many calving glaciers , to get anywhere near the land . But Laasi said there was an excellent hunters ’ camp spot just past the Melville Monument ( pictured !), a dramatic jut of rock just off the coast named by Sir John Ross in 1818 . And then a pea souper descended , and within minutes , I couldn ’ t see farther than 10 metres .
It ’ s such a speedy turnaround . Trying to figure out which way to go without losing precious energy and time readjusting my line was proving difficult without an easy-to-access GPS . I had only been about 20km from the camp spot when the fog came down – but dodging looming great icebergs and brash ice whilst having to stop to try and operate my phone for my position was starting to grate and , as always happened in the cold of Greenland , you start to get cold the instant you stop paddling . I radioed the boat to guide me into land – it seemed to take forever , and I had been convinced I was only a matter of minutes away . But finally , around two hours later , I landed on a great little rocky beach , pulled Scorp ( P & H Scorpio , my qajaq ) up above high water and found an almost flat camp spot with great views over the disappointingly close Melville Monument . It was disappointing because it looked so close , and I ’ d paddled past it hours earlier . That was a 78km day .
The next day looked good – the boat would hang about a bit closer as the ice farther north was thick and routes to land and camp far between . If I couldn ’ t reach the mainland , I had a backup island as a potential Plan B camp spot , but I always knew I had the boat as a Plan C if other options failed . Plan B soon became Plan A as I had to continually head westwards to avoid large sections of sea ice and icebergs – there was also plenty of fresh sea ice forming despite the weather being sunny , qajaqing through this fresh ice is quite draining ; it feels like someone ’ s hanging onto the back of the qajaq and cutting your speed right down .
A DRAMATIC GASH
I also found myself constantly changing my paddling style – that may have been a hangover from the elbow problem or just general fatigue or a combination , but it seemed to help a lot . Leaning right back or forward and having a high or low and shallow stroke also seemed to break up the monotony . I could see the island I was heading to for hours before reaching it – sometimes hidden behind icebergs , it popped in and out of view over the course of the day , always aggravatedly seeming the same size , and it felt like I wasn ’ t closing the distance at all , not until the last kilometre , when it increased rapidly in size , that I realised just how high it was ( pictured !) – an incredibly dramatic gash from top to bottom that I could qajaq right into , beautiful clear waters where you could see the contin ued descent of the rock into the depths . At this point , I was about 75km from any other land and , rather disappointingly , the rock plunged directly into the sea with no chance of a landing , let alone a camp spot .
The boat couldn ’ t see a way through the ice to the nearest land , so we decided to haul Scorp onto the boat and search for the safe line to camp . Six hours later , we finally made it – after some interesting moments . Often , in the sea ice , you just can ’ t see a way out , and then , almost magically , the differing