Greenland Video

I've created a 5 minute video of the Greenland trip. Not an easy task, since I must have over 7 hours of video from the trip! I was also struggling a bit using Windows Live Movie Maker, so I tried and purchased Sony Vegas Movie Studio. This package seems to be popular over on the gopro forums.

Sony Vegas studio has features that makes it easy to overlay voice commentary, include images and then crop/pan over them and fairly intuitive editting of the video itself.

Here's the Youtube version:

Greenland - Sermilik to Tasiilaq - 24th-27th July 2012

We paddled the few kilometers back to Tiniteqilaq, and with the shop open, it would be a crime not to support the local community and buy some more beer...

Our return journey to Tasiilaq would involve retracing our route back to the Angmagssalik fjord - we had hoped to circumnavigate the Angmagssalik island, but the weather forecast wasn't brilliant, and the southern tip of the island is very exposed.

Tiniteqilaq

We wanted to get as far up the Lairig Ghru as possible, and we got about half way and made camp. On the way we had found a large amount of wood, so we would have a good fire that night (as we did pretty much every night!)

Sunset in the "Lairig Ghru"

We returned to the island at the entrance to the Lairig Ghru and had another chance to look at the remains of the earth shelters. Pushing on, we then stopped at the deserted community of Qernertivartivit. Not long abandoned, one of the houses has been left pretty much as the last occupiers would have lived in it.

We made camp in a lovely positioned inlet, at the top of which we had a good view over the Angmagssalik fjord to watch whales.

Qernertivartivit - "ghost town"

Our last day on the water saw us return to Tasiilaq, but not before having to wait out some strong winds for a few hours. I must admit this was a fairly pleasant experience - although windy, it was still sunny, but the wind kept the flies off!

Sermilik to Tasiilaq

Greenland - Karale to Sermilik - 20th-23rd July 2012

We left Karale glacier very slowly - the air was totally still, and the water mirror calm. We didn't want to leave such an enchanting place.

Leaving Karale Glacier

Our route then took us back past the Bluie East 2 airbase and a camp at a fishing cabin.

An early start to catch the high tide to enable us to pass through a shallow channel saw us arrive at the village of Kungmuit where we could restock provisions (beer....) and freshen up.

Kungmuit

Carrying on we camped on an island at the start of a long channel that separates Angmagssalik island from the mainland. Martin calls this channel the "Lairig Ghru" as it feels like the Cairngorms feature of that name - maybe not quite the same views, but more to do with the significance of how it cuts through a great land mass.

The "Lairig Ghru" took us a whole day to paddle, and we camped again just short of the village of Tiniteqilaq.

We got up the following day excited at the prospects of the day's paddle - we knew there would be a lot of ice in the Sermilik fjord, and we were not to be disappointed.

We stopped of in Tiniteqilaq for a look around and to view the ice in Sermilik. A local fisherman sold us some Arctic Char that we would have that night for supper.

Inspecting the ice in Sermilik from Tiniteqilaq

We ventured up the Sermilik fjord for a few kilometers, but it was not long before the ice became too thick to continue north, so we turned towards the land and camped. Due to the amount of ice in the vicinity, we thought it prudent to maintain a "bear watch" overnight, so we took shifts of an hour each to maintain a lookout over the camp for any unwanted visitors.

In Sermilik Fjord

Karale to Sermilik

Greenland - En Route to the Karale Glacier - 15th-19th July 2012

Our first camp was the old whaling settlement at Amitsivartik. We explored the remains of the settlement that included old earth buildings, children's play areas marked out with rocks and human burial cairns.

Above the settlement a hill gave us a great view of Angmagssalik fjord where we sat and watched whales.

Our route took us through various channels and around islands. Our initial plans of taking a more seaward route were thwarted by winds that kept us on the more sheltered side of the islands. We encountered numerous icebergs - some adrift in the channels, others aground in the shallower waters. Each one strangely mesmerizing with its hues of blue and eroded shapes.

On the forth night out we camped by the deserted US base, Bluie East 2. Abandoned quickly in the 50's, the evidence of a quick departure is all around - from the trucks through to more delicate intact 1950s coke bottles.

From the airbase we paddled into Sermiligaq fjord and as as we neared the top of the fjord the water gradually changed colour - from wonderful clear water to the milky green characteristic of glacial meltwater. We had a view of the Knud Rasmussen glacier but turned west towards the Karale glacier. A wonderful scene of glaciers and their calved icebergs greeted us - the main Karale glacier plus two other glaciers feeding into the same fjord.

In front of the Karale Glacier

We camped on the rocks and moraine on the south side of the Karale glacier and trekked onto the glacier itself.

Tasiilaq to Karale Glacier

Greenland - Outward Journey - 11th-14th July 2012

On the 11th July 2012, five members of the North West Sea Kayakers (Jim, Kirstine, Chris, Stephanie and myself) left Manchester to fly to Reykjavik to start a near three week trip that would take us to the east coast of Greenland.

We stayed in Reykjavik for two nights, camping at the city hostel, meeting the rest of the team on the last night - our Greenland guide, Martin Rickard from seakayakadventures.co.uk and Dave and Jules from Shetland.

We spent our time in Reykjavik sight-seeing and enjoying the thermal pool adjacent to the campsite. Reykjavik and Iceland seemed very pleasant and I'd like to return for a longer visit with the family.

Reykjavik from the cathedral tower

On the friday, after a short delay waiting for fog to lift in Greenland, we boarded out flight to Kulusuk and we were on our way. As we approached Greenland we could see sea ice and massive ice bergs followed by the dramatic fjords and mountains that make up the east coast of Greenland.

Our planned transfer to Tasiilaq via boat was somewhat delayed - Martin and Lars the boat owner had got their wires crossed over dates, so we nearly had to camp at the airport and wait an extra day! - but luckily Martin managed to track Lars down in Tasiilaq and he came out to pick us up.

Waiting for the boat transfer to Tasiilaq

The boat trip was pretty spectacular - our first close up view of ice bergs, plus a number of whale sightings.

The campsite in Tasiilaq is nicknamed "Vietnam" by Martin due to the campsite's proximity to the village helicopter pad and rubbish tip!

Tasiilaq campsite

We had a chance to explore the village and stock up on provisions for our trip. Apart from drinking water, we were essentially self sufficient with food for up to 12 days away from the Tasiilaq base.

Jim is a sponsored P&H paddler, so he was keen to be seen and paddle a P&H boat, so he had arranged a deal for Martin to buy and ship out a P&H Scorpio for him to paddle. Only problem was that because of our late arrival on friday we missed the chance to get the boat out of the harbour warehouse and we could have had to wait till monday to get it. Luckily, Martin pulled a few strings and the harbour master managed to get us into the warehouse saturday morning to collect it. Inside the boat just happened to be two weeks supply of Clif bars for all of us, plus a wine box! - so it would have been a shame to leave on the trip without it.

The Harbour Master's kids try the Scorpio out

We completed our packing of the boats late saturday afternoon, and we decided to head off that evening on our journey.

Under way at last!

Greenland 2012 - Equipment Notes - Video Camera

In my previous post on the kit I'm assembling for Greenland, I mentioned that I was thinking of buying a GoPro Hero 2 video camera.... well I have now made the aforementioned purchase, and here's the first video I took with it on the Hilbre paddle with Arnaud on Saturday. I mounted it on the front of the boat using a helmet strap supplied with the camera. You can see the GoPro in one of the Hilbre island pictures (where I point it out with the "new toy" comment). I think it would be good to get a pole mount arrangement for the rear of the boat looking forward. All I would then need is to work out how to recharge it in Greenland, but I have a couple of thoughts on that front.

Greenland 2012 - Equipment Notes - Camera

I'm off to Greenland in July on a kayaking trip led by Martin Rickard from sea kayak adventures. We'll be camping from the kayaks for about 11 days and this trip will be throwing up lots of issues with respect to what kit to take and use. We have a weight limit to keep an eye on for the flights via Iceland and we will also be away from civilisation for several days.

One of the first dilemmas I've had is what camera to take (or cameras?...). None of my existing cameras are powered by conventional batteries - they all use rechargeable ones that require mains electricity to recharge and we can not count on getting access to mains power. So I decided that my best bet would be to get a camera powered by AA batteries and to take a number of packs with me to power the camera.

Once you get above basic point and shoot cameras there are not many that take AAs. I didn't want an expensive camera since I may lose it overboard one day. So in the sub £150 range most searches I performed led back to the same models:

• Nikon L120
• Canon SX140IS / SX150IS
• Fujifilm S2950

In the end I plumped for the Fuji and got it for a good price (£109) from Amazon. It ticked most of the boxes - including a digital viewfinder as an optional alternative to composing photos on the LCD screen. I saw this as a major feature that would save battery life out "in the wild". Picture quality seemed to get better reviews on the Canon, but a lot of reports of it being a battery eater put me off. Ditto for the Nikon - no viewfinder reduces the ability to reduce battery usage. Finally the fact that Martin also uses a predecessor in the Fuji model range swung it for me.

I'll be using it on some upcoming trips to see what battery life I get out of it plus a chance to see what the image quality is like. 

I'm tempted to take two cameras and I'm toying with the idea of getting a GoPro HD video camera that can also take good quality stills. This will again raise the issue of how to charge it and I'm thinking of using a solar  panel. If this works it would be great, but it is too risky an approach to assume I can charge both cameras with it, hence the decision to buy an AA powered camera as the main choice. Watch this space!