East Coast of Greenland to Scotland
Loch Sunart, Scotland 56 41 N 005 41 W
by Kate and Hamish Laird

• Planned route this summer: Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Greenland, Scotland
• On board: Kate and Hamish Laird, their children, Helen (4) and Anna (3), Jason Fitschen, and up to three guests on each leg of the voyage.

	This is the 48-hour forecast from NOAA from 10 September, as we were looking for our weather window to cross to Scotland. For information on UUPlus and the Webfetch software see http://www.uuplus.com.

We spent two weeks cruising the east coast of Greenland and watching hurricanes on the NOAA weather maps which we picked up via the Iridium phone (with UUPlus.com Webfetch software). We were chiefly concerned with "Maria", who plugged her way northward "safely out to sea" as the Weather Channel forecasters are wont to say, holding her wind velocities and huge area well up past the southern tip of Greenland.

Meanwhile, we hiked up hills, explored tiny anchorages, and ate blueberries, enjoying our last few days in Greenland. We were all loathe to leave; Greenland had far exceeded our expectations, and we were already planning our return for next season.

Picking up the weathermaps proved to be absolutely critical. The weatherfaxes from the UK were quite fuzzy (we later learned that there was an unusual amount of solar activity, which had made HF communication very difficult), and the British maps were effectively useless because they write the validity date and time in tiny print that is illegible unless the map is perfectly sharp. The weather map can be fine - it's easy enough to read the big H's and L's and figure out what's going on even with a fuzzy map, but it's no good at all if you don't know which map it is. We had the published schedule in the 2005 Reeds on board, but it bore no resemblance to what they were broadcasting, and of course the typed schedule they sent once a day was at a time of poor propagation and the writing was illegible.

If we hadn't had the Iridium backup, we would have left two days before we did - the weather was perfect, the wind was right, and we would have been in the midst of the hurricane force remains of "Maria" within 48 hours. The huge high pressure system on top of the Greenland ice cap made it difficult to judge the offshore weather with the barometer or the wind direction - we were completely reliant on the forecasts.

Arctic Fox on our last night in Greenland.

Finally, it looked as though "Maria" was clear, "Nate" had dissipated, and "Ophelia" was hanging about the East Coast of the US and moving slowly. We waited an extra 24 hours to let the swells die down a bit, and planned to leave on the morning of September 13.

On our last night in the anchorage, there was a shout of excitement: a white arctic fox was bounding along the shore. We'd seen quite a few arctic foxes during the summer, but they'd all been in their brown summer coats. This one was halfway through its change, with a few darker gray patches on its shoulders. Seal's raised saloon makes an ideal wildlife blind (or "hide" for our British crew): the animals and birds see the boat, but they don't see it as something alive, so they take little notice of it, and we were able to crowd the windows and watch the fox without alarming it. Quietly, we sneaked out into the cockpit as it went around to the stern of the boat and sniffed at the shoreline.

We were all excited to see a white fox, but it definitely gave a nudge to our preparations: the fox knew that winter was on its way; it was time for us to escape. That night, we crowded back into the cockpit to watch the Aurora Borealis - we wouldn't learn about the solar flare on the 10th until we returned to Scotland, but it definitely affected the Northern Lights. Green streaks pulsated in the sky in bands that covered the length of the sky. Tinges of pink appeared, and spotlights fired up from behind the mountains. It was very hard to believe that the lights weren't sentient. The shapes shimmered and shifted shape like a kaleidoscope, but with rounded edges. A pattern would hold for a few minutes and then instantly rearrange itself to a completely different shape. Photographs of the Borealis can't do it justice: the colors and shapes are interesting, but it was the sudden movement that we found so compelling.

.	Seal at anchor, one line ashore in Kulik, East Greenland

Had we known what a once-in-a-lifetime view we were having, we might well have stayed up all night, but we thought this was normal autumn behavior. Anyway, we needed a good night's sleep before the passage. We headed below to the heated interior. We were now leaving the heater on 24 hours a day. In the northwest of Greenland, we had been leaving it off for days at a time - the raised saloon windows, 3 inches of foam insulation and 24 hours of daylight provided plenty of solar heat to keep the boat warm, and we only put on the heater when we wanted hot showers. But now, we were down to 13 hours of daylight, and the cold East Greenland current was swirling around the hull.

We had packed up the dinghy earlier in the evening and put dinghy and outboard into the forepeak (we clear almost everything off the deck for offshore passages; for this passage we'd even removed the dorades entirely, and screwed down aluminum plates in their place, and we'd put on half-inch Lexan storm covers over all the raised saloon windows for the first time.)

In the morning, we woke to find a skim of freshwater ice over the cove. Three large waterfalls feed the cove, so there is a lot of fresh water floating on top of the salt. Alongshore, when the tide was out, the water tasted fresh enough to drink. We still had a shoreline out astern, and the CQR off our bow. Hamish put on his dry suit with lots of thermals underneath - we hadn't expected ice when we folded away the dinghy! He jumped off the scoop and the ice cracked away in front of him, as he swam to the shore and released the shore line.

Maggy at the helm, sailing with four reefs in the main and 2 turns on the jib furler, no staysail, wind 35 knots at 100 degrees.

From there, it was simply a matter of flaking down the anchor chain in the locker and then removing it from the anchor. (We've now taken to storing the anchor on the bow roller as the safest place for it offshore, but we remove the chain and plug the hawse pipe.) We motored out into the leftover swells and everyone had the chance to test out their sealegs for the first time in quite a while. Hamish and I had taken our "grumpy" pills (Meclizine Hydrochloride, Dramamine Non Drowsy) and I'd given Helen and Anna the "sleepy" version (Dimenhydrinate, Dramamine Chewable). The only other non-seasick person on board was Maggy - who managed the leftover hurricane without any drugs at all (apart from Nescafe) and was still able to read James and the Giant Peach to the girls on the first day (with me, they usually have to wait three days before I can bear to read aloud, even with seasick pills.) The smell of Maggy's Nescafe was reassuring as it wafted out to me on the helm: someone actually feels well enough to drink that stuff!

We watched the mountains of Greenland disappear behind us - actually growing bigger as we moved farther offshore: the 4000-footers we'd been climbing were dwarfed by an even higher range behind them, and glimpses of the Ice Cap, visible in the clear air once we were 20 miles offshore.

	Anna and Kate in the raised saloon, wind 35 knots at 90 degrees, 4 reefs in the main, 2 turns on the furler on the jib, no staysail.

We divided into five watches, with a rolling schedule of 4 hours on, 6 off. By ten o'clock that night we were sailing in 10-15 knots of wind, and the barometer was marching upward in the most steady ascent I have ever seen. We began the passage at 1014.2 and it didn't start to drop for another three days at 1029.5, yet we had plenty of wind as the isobars squeezed on the edge of the high. The wind built steadily over the next week, increasing to 30 knots as the pressure began to fall, held steady at 30-35 knots over the next three days, and then up to 35-40 for the two days after that. Hamish angled us to the south along the rhumb line to put in a bit of southing to hold off an anticipated southwesterly, so we were able to spend the entire week on a beam reach - we barely trimmed sheets or adjusted sails once we were down to the fourth reef and the staysail.

We could almost hear big iron doors slamming behind us as we crossed the north Atlantic. The frozen anchorage, the white fox, and the parade of hurricanes - it was time to get out.

We were pleased with how Seal did as a sea boat. We had done quite a bit of downwind surfing in even higher winds, but we hadn't sailed long distances with the wind on the beam. The seas were short and choppy, so the motion was fairly active, but she slipped along, and we managed a 210-mile day, measured off the chart. Overall, the GPS tells us the trip was 1247.5 miles, with an average speed of 7.5 knots.

Offshore, we pin the keel and the rudder down, so that Seal is effectively a fixed keel and rudder boat. The keel is held down with a compression ladder and big acme thread bolts that push it tight against the hull. (Unlike most centerboards, Seal's is fitted from above, and there is a "land" for the keel built into the hull, so that it can't drop out.) The rudder joint is immobilized with a 42mm stainless pin.

We watched dolphins alongside and out the saloon windows...Helen, who was recovering from being worryingly sick after refusing her seasick pills, wouldn't look up from listening to James and the Giant Peach: "I'm five. I've seen dolphins before." A logging (sleeping) humpback didn't wake as we passed. Watch after watch passed. There wasn't too much sleeping on the off watches - the boat was quite noisy for that. We'd never sailed in heavy weather with jib sheet cars - previously we'd used blocks shackled straight to the rails and downwind we do the same on Seal. On the beam, however, it was best to use the cars, but they sounded like fingernails on the blackboard to me. If we ever have such a steady reach again, we will probably move the sheets to the rail to quiet them down. Maggy, however, maintained that Seal was the quietest boat she'd ever sailed on - one thing that definitely paid off was having cutouts in the cupboard for all the pots and pans so that they didn't rattle against one another. Someone forgot to barrel lock the cutlery drawer at one point and there was a storm of teaspoons, but otherwise, things stayed put.

	Kate at the helm, sailing with four reefs in the main and 2 turns on the jib furler, no staysail, wind 30 knots at 100 degrees.

Our last night we made our approach to Barra Head with the full moon and 2 reefs in the main and the full jib. Dolphins swam around the boat and we watched the Barra light every fifteen seconds. We were heading towards the village in Scotland where Hamish lived ten years ago: "It's amazing," he said. "Sometimes dreams do come true." It was an emotional moment to sail "home" after a summer cruising in Greenland. We stayed on deck together for an hour (a rare thing, since usually one of us is on watch while the other sleeps) and watched the night. Maggy finished her watch and sat by the mast for the next several hours, taking it all in. Hamish went to bed, and I stayed up to do the nav through the next several watches. We were back in strong currents, so we wanted to keep a close eye on things.

When Hamish came off the helm at his next watch and relieved me at the chart table, we were screaming past the Coll light and into the Sound of Mull. We had the third reef in, as well as the staysail and jib, and Seal was making eight to nine knots through the flattish water of the Sound. It was my turn to sleep, but I only managed twenty minutes before the shrieks of excitement on deck drove me back into my foulies and onto the deck. This was much too thrilling to miss. We sailed all the way up the Sound as the dawn broke and we began to see light beyond the hills.

This was home water for Jess, and as we pulled the sails down and motored into Tobermory to clear customs, she looked up to see her mother and stepfather motoring across the sound on their boat.

After clearing customs (a highly civilized version - we called the national yachtline, they logged us, and then the local policeman came aboard to check our passports and registration), we had a pancake breakfast, a glass of whisky from Jess's mother, and a hot shower on board.

"It's so bothersome," said Helen. "Our first day in Scotland, and it's raining."

"Get used to it," said Hamish.

You can learn more about the Lairds and SEAL at their website www.expeditionsail.com (including a newly uploaded slideshow of their first two months in Greenland).