Artists and writers have an important role to play and it is vital that they are fully engaged in these (climate) issues

Marcus Brigstocke climbs Little Eqe

Marcus Brigstocke climbs Little Eqe at the mouth of the glacier named Ilulissat Kangia (Danish name - Jacobshavn Glacier).

Climb at Ilulissat Kangia

The group climbs Little Eqi at the mouth of the glacier named Ilulissat Kangia (Danish name – Jacobshavn Glacier). Audio by Vicky Long.

Arctic wear by Greenpeace

KT Tunstall and Luke Bullen
KT Tunstall and Luke Bullen. Arctic wear by Greenpeace.
Photo: Nathan Gallagher

Whales and birds near Ilulissat Kangia

A whale surfaces near the mouth of Ilulissat Kangia

Icebergs near the mouth of Ilulissat Kangia
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Ice

Sailing through the ice field near the mouth of Ilulissat Kangia, Danish name Jacobshavn Glacier (silent clip).

View from our cabin

View from my cabin as we sail North
Early morning view from my shared cabin/studio/moving home as we sail North towards Disko Bay.

The Iceberg Dawn

The Ship is in pitch darkness now. The engine is turning over gently. Many of the crew are in their quarters. The captain is upon the bridge and the anchor is far below, in the beneath world, holding us tightly onto this one.

The ship protected by cupped hands of light awaits morning. From the sky we are a firefly caught upon a spiders web wafting in wind. Snowflakes flocks of white butterfly spirits released from under the clouds land on my shoulders. And as the they melt the sun smears itself on the back of the clouds who in turn spread her light equally across the sky. Morning has come.

Competition: Name that ARGO float

To follow in the grand Cape Farewell ARGO float naming tradition, we declare the competition to name “Arty Bob 2” now open. Suggestions welcome from far and wide (post them in the comment box below). Get your suggestions in by Wednesday 1st October. Top suggestions so far include: Titanic Bob, Broken Mike (ask anyone at the London launch) and Sarah Palin (Marcus’s suggestion that it would be fairly satisfying to throw Sarah overboard into Arctic waters and have her surface only once every 10 days).

Frustration

Dr Carol Cotterill reviews the charts and prepares a marine geophysical survey line plan

Frustration reigns amongst the scientific staff at the moment. Initial problems with the triggering of the source were sorted yesterday afternoon. However we then discovered that the ship is a very noisy one acoustically speaking! Whilst the equipment was behaving perfectly, any return signal was being masked by the ship’s engines. Various options were discussed and tried, in liaison with the ship’s captain and crew, but at 11pm local time we decided to call it a night and start again in the morning.
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Qeqertarsuaq (Godhavn)

Husky dog
Greenlandic huskie dogs, bred with wolves and used for pulling sledges, surround the town of Qeqertarsuaq.

House in the small town of Qeqertarsuaq (Godhavn)
House on the rocks in the small town of Qeqertarsuaq (Godhavn).
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Technical Hitches

For the science team, Sunday was a day that we’d rather forget, so I’ll keep it quick. Whilst the rest of the group went ashore to visit a Greenlandic settlement and even see an iceberg tip over, we were sat in a container full of dysfunctional kit! The geophysics side managed to get all theirs working, only to find that the ship was too noisy to hear the sea bed returns and the Oceanography side failed to get the software to read the data from the CTD. It wasn’t all that bad though, plenty of hope, and a Marcus who can always be relied upon to cheer us up! Have a look at the previous days…

Sunday

Stop in Qeqertarsuaq (Big Island) on Disko island for walks to warm springs (1 to 6 degrees? – warm a relative concept), and a chance to walk in the town and surrounding hills and black basalt beaches. There are a couple of Greenlanders with us as guides throughout the trip, Karen and Ludvig. Both are Greenlanders who have a Danish education. Karen works in tourism, but also has a geology background. A good contingent head for church (L’s grandfather is the Pastor). The big draw is that the Lutheran service is in Greenlandic – a rare chance to engage directly with Greenlanders on the trip, though the turnout per head of population turns out to be not much over the average English midlands C of E crowd. But engage we do with a perhaps misplaced have-a-go attitude to singing along with the hymns.
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