Today we crossed the Arctic Circle at N 66 32′ which in this “bowl” contains over six million square miles of Ocean and land which has fascinated and challenged explorers and scientists alike for centuries. For us this marks an important milestone for our expedition as we take the next step closer to our final staging area in the Canadian high Arctic which is a thousand nautical miles to the North West at about N 76 32′.
This achievement prompted us to revisit the expedition timeline and see how we matched up to our anticipated plans. After a series of delays – Lewisporte pre-departure preparations, Nuuk repairs, battling a full scale outbreak of the flu on board and light winds to headwinds – We quickly realized that while we had achieved an important milestone we were behind schedule and would have to head North bound with haste.
There will not be time to visit all the villages we had hoped for and we have to do some route ajustement to achieve our staging area on time for our Arctic crossing attempt. This means picking villages and fjords more strategically so that we can still enjoy our Greenlandic surrounding while making meaningful progress toward our ultimate goal.
Unfortunately our delays and need to speed things up created logistical issues – Rana our documentary film maker friend wanted to take more time to dive deeper into some of the leads he had developed in a few villages along the coast while on the other hand Morgan our last crew was arriving further up North in Ilulissat and we had a responsibility to pick him up with in a reasonable amount of time. So compromises were made, Rana was dropped off in a village to follow his story and will meet up with us in a few days by ferry more North while Morgan waits in Ilulissat for a few days while we push North straight into the wind to reach him. Once we all unite in a few days time we will enjoy Disco bay then make a hard push for the high Arctic.
