Extreme Dipping - With Icebergs - Greenland 2023
It was shaping up to be a warm winter. We’d been cold water dipping (and had begun to enter outdoor swimming events) for a year. The 2021 winter had been snowy and the element of challenge seemed to be missing in 2022. Over a coffee we imagined the places we could go for a cold water challenge and I jokingly suggested Greenland because my dad had been on sea kayaking expeditions. There was a patch of quiet followed by ‘ok then’ from the group. The Brecon Polar Bears were born.
Brecon Polar Bears (no Darryll!)
Contact was made with a sea kayaking contact with Greenland connections and a plan was formed. Little did we know that plan would change a lot by the end of March 2023! We resolved to travel to Kulusuk in East Greenland to see whether it could serve as a cold water dipping destination.
Flights to Greenland are few and are booked up many months ahead so, after a couple of false starts, by the end of January, we had return flights from Reykjavik to Kulusuk, a hotel booking and a promise of ‘a couple of boat trips’.
Months of nervous excitement flew by while we competed in our first open swimming events and pushed ourselves in different directions with one eye at all times on the challenge ahead. Following some interesting kit choices and new 5mm wetsuits, September finally arrived and interesting packing ensued!
We set off for Luton on a Monday evening having no idea what to expect. Reykjavik brought us a beautiful apartment in a lovely city. A day of wandering and a visit to a municipal local thermal swimming baths only increased the excitement. We tried the shallow 12 degree pool until our toes burned and found even more challenge in the 40 degree thermals – not quite the trial we had come for!
Our taxi driver, Edi, was spot on time the next morning and, following breakfast at the airport, we boarded Icelandair’s propellered Thorun the Horned (yes, they name the planes!) with no more than 15 others for our journey to the island of Kulusuk.
It’s difficult to describe the feeling of seeing your first ever iceberg. They are one of the most beautiful natural structures on this planet and no photo you have ever seen comes close to how they look with the naked eye.
The flight into Kulusuk airport is hair raising as you sail in with jagged mountains on both sides, over the icebergs to land on a dirt runway you can’t see until you hit it. We all exited that plane with huge smiles on our faces.
We were met by Jakob from Hotel Kulusuk who encouraged us to walk down to the hotel while he collected our bags. We didn’t need to be asked twice and set off in awe of the vista, before checking in and wandering straight back out with our dipping kit in our backpacks to heed the warning of ‘don’t swim in the water supply’!
We ambled down the road to Kulusuk itself to immerse ourselves in Greenlandic life. We took in the sled dogs, fishermen selling the daily catch to the villagers, hunted seals stored under water in the harbour, children playing and the outstanding shop where you can buy everything from guns to crisps.
Walking back up to the hotel and turning up towards the mountains and glaciers beyond, we determined to find a dipping spot (that was not part of the water supply!). We were not disappointed and enthusiastically embarked on our first Greenlandic dip which involved weirdly spongy ‘rock’, lichen of many colours and plenty of silty mud. The water was clean and inviting and the warm sun, despite the cold, made changing a doddle. We sat on the side of the glacial lake with coffee and biscuits without another human in sight or earshot.
Hotel Kulusuk is an oasis of warmth and comfort in an otherwise brutal environment. Chef Maki (from Canada) was a genius with whatever came out of the cold store from day to day and every plate was inviting and astonishingly tasty! At the end of every day, Jakob made sure the sauna with a view was ready for us before Happy Hour where the wine flowed generously and each day’s adventures were shared between the hotel’s multi-national guests.
But our first night had one more surprise in store – the Aurora Borealis decided to pay us a spectacular visit and we sat on driftwood long into the night watching the show. We slept well!
We heard from Jakob that we were to be on the jetty at 9am to meet Lars and our boat the next day. On climbing aboard, Lars told us that we were the first tourists to use the new metal bridge down to the pontoon – a big deal locally! We set off at a steady pace towards Ammassalik Fjord and Lars told us that we were to spend 1.5 hours exploring Tiniteqilaaq. We were told to walk ‘up and over the hill and you will understand why you are here’ so we did as we were told all the time becoming more keen to get in the water!
In the company of sled dog pups, we climbed to the top of the hill to be met with a birds eye view of Sermilik, a fjord jam packed with every possible type and size of iceberg. The sounds of Greenland are diverse but that day will be remembered for the crunching and carving of icebergs interspersed with the odd gunshot of a seal hunter. Then we noticed the icebergs on the land below us and, like naughty schoolkids, we clambered down to see them up close. The hour and a half, that seemed such a long time on the boat, flew past and it was soon time to get back to Lars with no idea of what he had planned. Ice was coming next!
Lars expertly negotiated the lumps of ice in the water and the frozen sheet that appears from time to time on top of the water, much to our amazement. From time to time he stopped the engine and allowed the boat to float past icebergs, tutoring us in photography and icebergs (9/10 of an iceberg is under the surface!) and culture, but all the time firmly in the belief that we were actually bonkers for wanting to swim. We ate lunch while drifting between icebergs in a peaceful world of blue and white.
We were to swim in the ice fjord and Lars wanted to find a blue iceberg for us to swim near because ‘blue ice is safer ice’. We pulled on our kit, prepped the waterproof cameras and settled into the water (fresh at 1.6 degrees) for a magical swim that included clambering on an iceberg and only exiting the water when we couldn’t feel our toes.
The boat had a heated cabin and Lars’ coffee and hot chocolate was plentiful so warming up was probably easier than after some of our UK dips! An afternoon of minke whale and Greenland Seal spotting followed and, by the time we hit the sauna for the first time, we had travelled over 200km on that boat! We were in bed by 9pm 😊having been told to be on the jetty by 8am the next morning because a storm was coming the next evening.
We were met at the Jetty by Haral, a 60 year old Greenlandic hunter from Tassilaq who spoke less English (still a huge improvement on our Greenlandic) and drove like a New York taxi driver. He clearly had a plan and set off at a lick into the Sermiligaaq towards the Apuseeq Glacier. As we travelled through the rugged fjord, we passed minke whales and a disused 1940s American airbase as well as glacial beaches adorned with stranded icebergs. The sun continued to shine on us and our first sight of the monumental glacier was mindblowing.
As we approached (quietly and slowly!) the colour of the water turned from Atlantic blue to a deep mineral aquamarine which the thermometer put at a balmy 3.4 degrees. We couldn’t wait to get in!
We found that, in 5mm wetsuits, you are extremely buoyant in the mineral water so it was actually quite difficult to get your head under. The tropical colours and bright sunshine meant that we stayed in the water for over 30 minutes, trying front crawl (very salty!) and trying to film the underneath of one of the smaller (and less dangerous!) icebergs. The water is supposed to be about 1km deep but you could barely see past your feet in this sparkly mineral soup.
Haral seemed less concerned with our safety (sanity?) than Lars and allowed the boat to drift which gave us the chance to swim after it when we could no longer feel the extremities. Once again, Haral had a plan and, while we warmed up with coffee and hot chocolate, he gently negotiated his way back out into Sermiligaaq, turning right towards the Karale Glacier.
Along the way, we passed smaller glaciers that carved in front of us leaving bright blue patches in an otherwise white wall and sending chunks crashing into the water to float off into the iceflow.
Instead of driving straight up to the glacier, Haral pulled over and moored the boat to some rocks indicating that we should have ‘food here’. We did as we were told and, on clambering off, realized that we were on a glacial beach devoid of any footprint. Our picnic with a view was long as we absorbed our surroundings and listened to the sound of a thundering waterfall knowing it was under the seemingly unmoving glacier opposite the beach. That lunch was a feast for the senses!
And then we remembered why we were there and that we had brought extra swim kit! We donned our bathers and waded into the glacial waters, marvelling at the lumps of ice that were floating past us and brushing against our legs – that was a nippy dip indeed! And we were out not long after getting in but the photos are epic!
Back on the boat, the ever smiling Haral decided that we needed a closer look at the Karale glacier and he was immaculate in his navigation of the endless lumps of white ice, clear ice and sheet ice both on and under the surface. The drift along the front of the glacier was a sensory overload of colour and sound and your heart couldn’t fail to beat a bit faster thinking that there could be a carve in front of you at any moment that could send a wave to challenge even Haral!
Once out of sonic range of the glaciers, Haral put his foot down and we motored back down Sermiligaaq racing the storm back to Kulusuk (and Jacob’s sauna). Within an hour or so it was clear we had lingered too long. The clouds were gathering and the wind was picking up. The sea in Greenland is different; it moves in every direction at once so that the boat was constantly bumped and banged and the unflappable Haral hugged the small islands and channels of slightly calmer water. This was clearly a man who has seen it all at sea. My lasting memory will be turning into the open fjord towards Kulusuk when a gust of wind and a big wave from the left sent the boat almost vertically onto its side before Haral sent it crashing back onto the flat – the grin he shone to our terrified faces was unforgettable. His final act of kindness was on approach to the new Kulusuk bridge which was attached to a floating pontoon that was rising and falling with the sea in a variation of about 6 feet – there was no way we could exit onto that pontoon which looked like something out of a wipeout course! Haral didn’t hesitate. He gently steered the boat onto the steady rocks at the side of the jetty and we threw our kit ahead and clambered safely off, struggling to stand in the wind to wave him off back to Tassilaq. What a man!
We arrived back in the hotel to find preparations for the storm being made but also being reassured by Jakob that it had been ‘downgraded to a fart in a glass of water’. The storm had grounded other travelers who arrived at the hotel and a busy evening of excellent food and wine resulted in another early night and a deep sleep which was briefly interrupted by the hiking group determined to party and who mysteriously ‘moved on’ the next morning. Greenland is a land that does not tolerate bad behaviour and where anything stronger than wine is illegal.
On the day of the storm we breakfasted and slept some more and read and looked at our photos until we needed some fresh air. A soggy wander to the village was on the cards and we marvelled at the howling of the sled dogs echoing around the fjord. We went off to a slippery outcrop to find the statue of Milka “Miilikka” Kuitse who fought to preserve the drum dancing of Inuit culture. We resolved to try and visit the museum on our last day and, during Happy Hour, Jakob offered to contact the museum’s owners and arranged for us to visit the next day.
A couple of other hotel guests joined us on our visit to the museum where we were generously hosted by Justine Boassen whose family own the museum and who is the headteacher of Kulusuk School. We were immersed in Inuit culture and fascinated by the huge collection of artifacts (including a driftwood kayak and a massive narwhal tusk) that have been amassed over the lives of her parents. We chatted about the trials and tribulations of ancient and modern Greenlandic and Inuit history and culture and wore her Justine out with our fascination!
A walk further up into the hills was then in order but we left the dipping kit in the hotel because the temperature had dropped. We trundled along the rough roadway only passing a couple on a quad and the Danish welder from our hotel on his way to a pipeline job. We explored glaciers and waterfalls before turning at the top to head back to the sauna……..at which point we remembered why we had come to Greenland in the first place, stripped off and skinny dipped in a glacial lake, all the time hoping the Danish welder was not on his way back down the road!
Boarding the flight the next morning was a tough one. We didn’t want to leave. Greenland leaves an indelible mark on your soul.
Travel note:
This was not a trip for the faint hearted or anyone looking for a ‘tourist destination’ or any kind of package holiday.
The weather is seriously unpredictable and we know we were incredibly lucky to have the two fantastic days we were gifted. It would be equally possible to go all that way and be stuck on Kulusuk island for the entire trip.
We are a resourceful, environmentally aware and easy going group of friends who went with the intention of seeing whether Greenland was a suitable dipping destination. Our resourcefulness, environmental awareness and respect for the local culture were all tested and repeatedly required. It would be a mistake to behave as if you were at home as the partying hikers found out!