A First Mate's Story

We took a boatline called Disko Line out into the channel, and passed huge icebergs and small chunks of ice as we made our way out of a long fjord. Greenland's size and immensity makes you feel small and insignificant.

The first mate we met in up in the helm told us about a boat he was on with this same captain that came across another vessel in distress. The glacier had pushed the boat so that it was marooned on rocks. They went to their assistance, but the currents left them out of the water, up on rocks too. The pressure from the glacier pushes boats everywhere, and the falling chunks cause great tidal waves, so they were stuck.

They stayed there for three days, they sent the passengers out but they stayed with the stranded craft. They couldn't get the boat off the rocks, so they had to abandon it. A month later the glacier came and moved the $8 million boat, and it was crushed, and sank.