“We’re lying here in the tent and have just woken up – or rather, we’ve just been woken up by skipper Ole, who arrived with two cups of coffee with milk” tells Ingeborg over the telephone.
The Viking Ship Museum is in contact with Skjoldungen’s crew every day to hear the important message: All is well on board – crew and boat are well – we’re all good!
However, luckily there is often time to hear more than just the bare minimum and today, there was time for a long chat with the ‘telephone minder in Roskilde’ about the many experiences they’ve had recently.
“It feels like it’s getting warmer and warmer. It’s been all the way up to 7 – 10 degrees during the day, but it’s hard to be sure and maybe it’s just us, because we’ve gotten so used to being outdoors all the time. The weather has been very dry – there’s not much rain but when the frozen fog comes, then it gets cold, damp and clammy”, reports Ingeborg.
The frozen fog is so dense, that you can’t see your hand in front of you. If it comes when the boat is at sea, they have no alternative but to navigate via a navigation app on their iPad. Normally the crew navigates using a sea chart. Neither of these was available to the Vikings and it raises a lot of thoughts about how a boat and crew would have coped with the frozen fog 1000 years ago.
The pictures that are sent home from Greenland show weather-beaten and ‘polar sunburnt’ crewmembers. They’ve been under way for five weeks and now have only the last 35 sea miles north to Nuuk left.
Skjoldungen is lying safe and sound in the harbour at ‘Polar Oil’, well protected between a pontoon bridge on one side and the tanker ‘Oratank’ on the other. This gives the crew peace of mind, as Ingeborg explains, “Skjoldungen is essentially lying in its own secure dock, which gives us the peace to rest properly. Otherwise, we’re always on watch – of course, we still watch over the ship all the time, but when the ship isn’t as well protected, you’re conscious of it all the time, don’t sleep as deeply and wake with every strange noise. We got a great welcome from Olav, who looks after the facility here, together with a cook and an assistant. We’ve been offered lunch and have gone out hunting for mussels”.
The mussels will be eaten tonight with a strong tomato and garlic sauce and served with pasta. Yesterday, they feasted on cod until they were fit to burst. “We’ve eaten like kings. Our basic food, such as dried goods and spices are often supplemented with fresh fish from the locals. We’ve really been shown a warm welcome.”Today, the crew have been invited on a tour to ‘Færingehavn’, which was established in the 1920s as a centre for cod fishing. Today, the town is abandoned and decaying. “It’ll be exciting to see a town, that had shops and restaurants at its heyday, but which is now completely empty”, says Ingeborg. The trip will take place in a glass fibre boat, with a 200 horse-power motor. “That’s true Greenland-style. It’s how the locals get around up here – they don’t use oars and sail!”
The area Skjoldungen has now come to is just 1½ hours sailing from Nuuk – if you have an efficient outboard engine – which means that it’s slowly becoming an area for holiday homes. “We’ve seen several villages where craftsmen are busy renovating old houses. ‘City folk’ from Nuuk buy up the houses and use them as bases for hunting”, tells Ingeborg. “The reindeer hunting season began yesterday. The cook from ‘Polar Oil’ went out hunting in his tracksuit, with a rifle. They don’t fuss so much about having the right, smart equipment. Here, hunting is just something everyone does. And he’s a skilled hunter. Maybe we’ll have the chance to taste reindeer, before we have to sail on”, concludes Ingeborg.
