As we head for our anchorage off Korokuluk Brook, it becomes clear to us – we’re going through withdrawal. We long for lush vegetation, sunshine and people. For weeks we’ve been sailing through fog, and on the rare occasions when the grey mist surrounding us allowed a panoramic view, all we could see were barren rock formations. Whenever we spotted a distant ship on the AIS (Automatic Identification System), it immediately became the topic of conversation. We imagine how lovely it must be to anchor in a bay with wooded shores. How soothing a bit of green vegetation might be. Just how great our longing is becomes apparent as we approach. Through our binoculars, we spot a small island in the fog. Nothing special. But then we make out several stocky ‘antennas’. A former radio station? Not at all. As we get closer, the whole crew bursts out laughing. They’re trees – perfectly ordinary trees – which, in our delirium of deprivation, we’d simply mistaken for antennas. At last. At 57 degrees north, we’ve apparently reached the tree line….

And we carry on southwards. In the rain. It’s been falling on deck for hours – it feels like days and weeks – running down our oilskins and blurring the contours of the coastline. Nevertheless, the mood on board has changed. Everyone is more active than usual, and even in the rain there are constantly people on deck who aren’t actually on watch.
We’re on our way to Nain. We set off from Nuuk exactly two weeks ago. Since then, we’ve only been ashore a few times, and always just briefly.
Around 1,200 people live in Nain – after Base Camp and Hebron, that’s almost a big city to us.

18 nautical miles off Nain, the first fairway buoy appears – the first since Reykjavík. An unfamiliar sight after all these days at sea.
However, there is one particular feature to bear in mind regarding navigation marks in Canada. Unlike in Europe, the buoyage here follows IALA B standards. For lateral buoys, this means that when entering the harbour: red marks the starboard side, green the port side.
The North American mnemonic sums it up more simply: ‘Red Right Returning’ – red on the right when entering.

Then we reach Nain. For the first time since we set sail from Nuuk, we cast our mooring lines over the bollards again.

The lines are secure.
And almost at the same moment, something happens that we’ve been waiting for all day: it stops raining.

Matze & Thomas

Position: 56.543387, -61.686945