Hey gang,
I haven't read the bookyour quoting it sounds fasinating. I'll have to see if I can hunt up a copy.

Here are some thoughts on the shorter Disko paddle having tossed some water with the locals in the area in the late 70's. Its been a lot of years since I was in the Disko Sound area, but the biggest reason for the shorter local paddle is what they have to paddle through. Paddling in the area is different then in most other parts of Grenland.

Disko Sound is really a long dip in the west Greenland Coast linenot the deep embayment we think of when using the term bay. Like Chesapeake Bay etc. Its jsut a differnet kind. In the middle of the bay and off in the Davis straights a bit, is Disko Island. This island parts the flow of the Davis straights and sees weather the rest of Greenland doesn't see. There is a huge!! glacier on Disko Island that, calves a prodigious amount of ice. Partly, because of the increase in precip. the island gets. These bergs get to the North Atlantic easier because they start out being calved off shore and thus aren't as likely to get trapped in the pan ice. They are gorgeous in a horizon sun.

The way the glacier calves, causes much of the big ice bergs that get into the North Atlantic. However in the creation of burgs, an incredible amount of slush and growlers (smaller ice 1 to 12 feet long are created and reside just at water level. They are beautiful because they melt out as these incredible figures sculptures.

In most of the rest of Greenland, growlers float off and melt away slowly. However, in the Disko area, (and some other places like it) most of the embayments point into the prevaling wind. And in that the whole area is carved into the west coast of Greenland you end up with a slush trap. Thus, the big bergs make it out to the sea on inertia and tides but the smaller growlers and slush are held in place or actually blown in to the coastal embayments by the ussually stiff winds coming off the straight.

Additionally, the local fiords do odd things too. They fill up with a very high tide until it is over powered by the outflow. This presure wave is largely unpredictable. Though local paddlers have a pretty good gut sense about when to worry. These events It just starts to gush in a big presure wave. In the local fiords the outflow verse the winds and the huge tidal changes on a tight run of slush and growlers can set up as really unpredictable waves that when they hit you are basicly solid. Its hard to see them coming on a back ground of rolling whitish grey, and to add to the joy these things bounce of the rocky shore lines. If the outflows are coming off of more then one glacial face, It can be darn scary! At the same time, you get weird localized spotty water patterns in the summer, were the fresh water out of the new bergs and the melting glacial ice meets salt water from the sea pan ice and old bergs. When this is happening, it can be difficult to find sweat water to push against on a warm day. Its sort of like paddling hte mixed up water out of Deception pass at tide turn but for a differnt reason.

The shorter local paddles in the area largely reflect the local conditions. Yeah the wind is a factor, but that is true most everywhere in West Greenland that isn't inside a fiord. Its simply easier to dip closer to the boat then to swing wider were there are more ice obsticals. Also punching a boat through slush acts to just build up the ice ain a line few inches farther out. And given the mixing of fresh and salt water its easier to find laminar flow in water that has been affected by the hull and your own bow wave. In a yak that means right next to the hull.

My main memory of Disko is it being a real hunt and peck sort of place. Finding one's way through the wind trapped stuff. I remember the local boats as being well ground. By ice. They often went so far as to put out extra strips of material on the water line that could be replaced yearly after it was abraided down by the ice passing by it.

What I most remember in Disko Sound is being taught how to lasso the smaller bergs on favorable tides and flows so they could tow us in the right winds we would even sail them. It worked great unless it decided to roll over. Then you had to let loose the line as the berg reeled in your cord.

Man I am getting cold just thinking about it
!RUSS