Arrived in Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg)

Yesterday afternoon, at 3:30 p.m. local, we crossed the Arctic Circle and arrived here in Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg), Greenland two hours later, 20 minutes late for clearing in with Customs who won’t be open again until Monday… and one of us needs to fly out today, Saturday. The joys of the cruising life. We were told that the local police can clear us in but their hours are 9:00 – 5:00 and too are closed for the weekend; gives a whole new definition to Organized Crime. As luck would have it the crew bumped into a local cop last night and he took them to the station and stamped them in, then and there. The joys of small, beautiful & equally as friendly fishing villages!

Sisimiut is Greenland’s second largest town with over 5,000 people. The community itself goes back hundreds of years and it’s current location was established in 1764. The passage here from Sondre Stromsfjord – itself one of the most beautiful anchorages/fjords I’ve yet to be in – was as predicted by the downloaded GRIB files, 10kts from the NNW and relatively flat seas which gave us all a chance to stand down from iceberg watch and catch up on laundry, ship’s maintenance and reading. The current situation with the watermaker has slipped into that of an “intermittent” problem; sometimes it works as advertised, sometimes not, very hard to nail down and diagnose. I’ve every confidence that eventually this will get squared away but my concern is that due to logistics this won’t be until Seattle. We’re going to remain here in Sisimiut until at least the 23rd as two new crew, Chauncey & Greg, will be flying in the 22nd. It took moving heaven and earth (and travel agent David Pearl of Bond Street Travel in NY’s reinvention of the wheel) to fly Ulli Bonnekamp, our cinematographer out today. All fingers and toes crossed that Chauncey and Greg make all their connection on the 22nd. Stay tuned?

By the way, can anyone tell us what “Inissinneqassanngilluinnarput” means? We’d hate to embarrass ourselves and not do as requested.