Taking part in the first day of the Summer University - Sea and Education 2025 - Arctic worlds: so far away, yet so close?. Round table discussion: “Myths, constraints, and challenges: how to adapt to the North Pole?”, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the IUEM in Plouzané (29).
Accompanied by numerous dolphins, we drop anchor in the first small welcoming bay (Portacloy) in order to lower from the mast what remains of the scraps of our mainsail.
Then a refreshing sea bath in 13°C water relaxes us from this crossing!
The next day, we stop by our friend Mélanie’s place, always as welcoming as ever. Her crepe truck is a hit in summer, and her little house in front of the idyllic bay of Ballyconneely is open to us. The sea is warmer there, the oysters before departure are excellent, and the cows wandering on the beaches are quite a sight!
Keen to attend at least one session of Irish music — and have a pint of Guinness — in a pub, we then go down to the picturesque town of Dingle, and indeed, music is everywhere, even in a square where about fifteen young people, with their teacher, give their session!
Playing as best as we can with the weather, we still cannot pass south of Ireland in one go and must take shelter at Castletownbere, a very active and well-protected fishing port. However, as happened to us in Greenland, our anchor does not hold… We are allowed to moor at the quay, also having a problem with the helm. While waiting for this gale to pass, we enjoy the land, its trees, delicious blackberries, and one last Irish session in a very “family” pub.
When we set off again, it is for the bay of Brest! On a beautiful sea, close-hauled, suddenly the genoa halyard point breaks and it starts to descend on its own! So it is with the engines, helped by our only staysail, that we spend the last 24 hours.
Pleasure of arriving at dawn in sight of the Pointe de Saint-Mathieu. We are right on time to take advantage of the tidal currents when a call from CROSS Corsen announces that the Brest strait is “restricted,” that is, closed! No indication of time or cause… An Ultime catamaran tacks around us, a French Navy vessel asked us to deviate due to a group of divers… Fifteen minutes later, we discover the Nuclear Ballistic Submarine that was occupying the strait. Our turn! The bay of Brest is very lively in this squally weather; all kinds of boats are sailing, from windsurf boards to magnificent classic yachts, all sails out.
At the end of the bay, we enter the Faou channel, and Google Earth is useful to supplement the few channel buoys! As long as we keep one meter under the hull, it’s fine; any deviation would risk grounding! It is while stirring up the mud that we make the final turn to moor Vagabond at the pretty quay of Faou, and it is Serge Hilbert, my former director at the Douarnenez Maritime Festivals, who takes our mooring lines! Ten minutes from our home, the place is charming. We even continue to live aboard for a few days, extending the list of maintenance points for Vagabond; we are going to pamper her!
Vagabond had not been back in French waters since May 2011... After a rough crossing from Greenland with her family crew, she is now moored at Le Faou, at the far end of Brest harbor (her home port).
Aurore, Léonie, Eric and I allow ourselves a little week to stroll or explore, before setting off across the ocean back toward Brittany.
In the small bay of Kilagtoq not far from Qaqortoq, Eric takes Aurore diving near an iceberg!
Heading east, we pass by Qaqortoq again and then set course for the hot springs of Uunartoq! We could stay there for hours. Several Greenlandic families come ashore with their picnics — it’s the local recreational stop.
We then discover Nanortaliq and its surroundings under a dreamlike sun before seeking shelter far from the bulk of the forecast gale. The dramatic clouds against alpine peaks set the atmosphere, and we are happy to enter through the small pass into the wide bay of the tiny village of Tasiusaq.
However, the wind weaves its streaks of gusts there, and our anchor seems never to hold! We re-anchor at least four times, night falls, and the GPS traces our erratic drifting paths, anchor dangling at the end of 60 meters of chain… Early the next morning, while the anchor finally holds after a few hours, Vagabond’s stern is just a few meters from the rocks, and we have the leisure to enjoy the close visit of curious sheeps! When the depth sounder shows less than a meter under the hull, we set off again, chain dangling… In the end, we experience 24 hours of sliding in this bay before the calm returns and we feel as if we are on a mirror lake. We can finally stretch our legs, serenely, toward the large Tasersuaq lake at the bottom of the valley.
Before reaching Aappilattoq in the maze of the long Prince Christian Passage and its enormous cliffs, we anchor at a fjord intersection for a bivouac, comfortably settled each on our moss mattress, noses to the stars and the northern lights.
Aappilattoq and its tiny niche of peaceful water, well sheltered by high walls, finally welcomes three sailboats! We moor at a quay half the length of Vagabond, peaceful… After walking through the small, secluded village, to the sound of a calm accordionist on his doorstep, we take time to explore the weather windows to cross the Atlantic, and without delay, set off toward the exit of Prins Christian Sund. There stands an old automated and abandoned weather station, overlooking the open sea. Stunning view, letting us know it is time to go!
On the evening of August 1st, we cast off for Ireland. With the following wind, we almost made it in eight days! But from strong to very strong conditions, the crossing was punctuated by two waypoints to pick further north, recommended by our friend and router Christian Dumard, to avoid the worst… the storm still caught up with us: 24 hours from Ireland, the black clouds of the tail of a depression that had become too active destroyed our mainsail, shredded! It must be said that with the anemometer stuck between 50 and up to 65 knots, we spent 8 hours in a rather “survival” mode! But our faithful Vagabond is sturdy. More than my arms, stiff with cramps at the helm… We broke all of Vagabond’s speed records: many surfs at 11, then a memorable one at 13 knots!!! Sporty but productive.
July 8th, Léonie and Aurore arrive from France, barely ahead of Christophe Prunier, a geophysics engineer, Christian Schiffer, a geophysicist already on board last summer, and Christophe Raylat, director and cameraman, who takes over from Pierre Petit.
The idea is to recover the 15 seismic stations that we set up last summer in order to record the “tremors of the earth”! Joy to be reunited as a family to share this last part of the mission that has occupied us for three summers, and with such good companions!
Christian is delighted, mission accomplished: all the stations have worked. Christophe too: he is the one who had planned and packed all the necessary equipment into the blue IPEV container, stored in Narsaq for a year, and whose return by cargo he is preparing. And our Christophe “meerkat” nicknamed so by the girls’ camaraderie, stores all of this with enthusiasm in the eye of his camera.
Around a bend in a fjord, we spot a small yellow sailboat, the Harmattan, which has been looking for us. We go together to the little fjord that is dear to us in the middle of Tuttutooq Island and spend a convivial evening there. Tanguy, whom we met on board the catamaran We Explore the previous year, is leaving for the Northwest Passage with his three friends. We leave them the next day, not without slowly sailing under wind to the end of the fjord that had welcomed us so warmly in previous years.
End of the mission. We pass through the ice fjord just before Narsarsuaq to marvel one last time… We moor Vagabond to a beautiful ice floe before going to frolic on this bumpy beige-white-blue terrain as the wind rises and then blows in gusts! A somewhat hurried return on board before casting off, while Mother Nature plays one of her symphonies full of strength and beauty. Special dedication to our companions who take the plane a few hours later…
Once Laurent leaves, there are only three of us left on board — Pierre, Eric and me — for 18 days, before the arrival of the next team. It is quite strange to live at this less hectic pace than usual, when missions follow one another and time always seems to be running out! But we have never spent a winter in Greenland and are happy, for once, to have time to meet people, to live more in tune with those around us.
Pierre takes advantage of it, in the manner of an impressionist reporter, to capture atmospheres, testimonies, or scenes of life — all those ingredients of reality that set the scene and will bring an extra touch of soul to his documentary.
To begin with, one unmissable date: June 21st, Greenland’s National Day and the summer solstice! On the program, among other things: a seal-hunting competition in the morning, won in 9 minutes and 15 seconds after the speedboats had set off (the second hunter returns only after 1 hour and 9 minutes!), then a giant picnic in the valley at the foot of the mountain, where fish and seals are shared and cooked on site, with an outdoor stage and live band. A Greenlandic Woodstock!
We have known Ivalo for two years. She is in charge of culture in Narsaq, and she is the one who organized the June 21st festivities. This time she suggests that we join a kaffemik almost at the end of the Ikersuaq fjord, in honor of her brother Aka’s 45th birthday, who runs the Kangerlua farm there. Having arrived the evening before, weaving between the ice (not forgetting a lovely stop for ice diving and watercolor painting on ice), we find him with his son Saamik, busy bringing down the small drone they use to gather the sheeps! Elisa, his wife, immediately invites us to share the meal. The next day, three speedboats loaded with cousins and friends, as well as a quad from neighboring farmers (from the other side of the mountain), arrive in a joyful atmosphere. Sitting on the floor or on whatever can serve as a seat in the pretty little house, laughter and conversations mix with the children’s games around a round of dishes that keep being refilled: local lamb, mattak sushi, cakes of every kind… Outside, people joke or play frisbee under the gentle summer sun. Although Vagabond is slower, Ivalo is delighted to return to Narsaq with us, accompanied by her two grand daughters and her future daughter-in-law Gigi, heavily pregnant; a geology professor in Narsaq, she appreciates the cliffs we sail past and is not short of comments, both on the job opportunities here and on the burning issue of mining in the area…
Two weeks later, we are invited to the wedding of Gigi and Nanoq, Ivalo’s son! A celebration in the small church standing on a hill in the village, before going to continue the festivities at Ivalo’s house, where we also meet her more urban family, who have come from Qaqortoq or Nuuk.
Shortly before, the church has shown us the face of tragedy. We take part, in sadness and contemplation, in the funeral of a father and his son. With his 8-year-old daughter, now in a wheelchair, the father was taking them toward Qassimiut by speedboat among the icebergs and fog, when what unfortunately happens too often happened again: the boat hit a shallow area, probably at high speed. Only the little girl was found alive the next day, shivering on the shore… For this funeral, the whole village gathers and stands together in pain.
Later, together with our friends Birgitte and Jacky, we decide to visit one of the most isolated farms in the region, Eqaluitilua, as far away as it is enclosed by its barrier of icebergs. Once at anchor, we take the time to have lunch on board before going ashore. The farmer soon comes to meet us, inviting us to come and have coffee… his mother, who has lived much of her life here and has built the farm with her husband, has already prepared a magnificent cake for our arrival! Stories of their settlement, of life through the seasons, photos, drawings, tanning… no idleness here. Jacky’s presence changes everything: in Greenland for more than 30 years, he speaks Greenlandic and, above all, has long communicated by radio with the inhabitants of this farm without ever having met them! They are now switching from sheep farming to potato growing! And just like their “neighbors” across the fjord, they would never want to live in town, in Narsaq!
In Narsaq, for years, there are also Paul and Monica, American and German, who have taken great care of Vagabond during the winter. They come on board with their dog for a few days and show us the places that are dear to them.
In Narsarsuaq, near the airport, there are Birgitte and Jacky — Danish and French (naturalized Greenlandic) — who, for three years now, have been offering us friendship and logistics, lending us their bathroom and washing machine at each stop, as well as countless moments of conviviality and epic stories — dear Jacky!
Screening of the film Climate research in the Arctic, a family in the service of science at the community center in Narsaq (Greenland) at 7 p.m.
Early in the season this year, we welcome Laurent Geoffroy for the third and last year of his research in Gardar. Will the giant dykes from this region reveal their secrets?
We're still working on a time scale... immeasurable. This question recurs every day of his short stay. Breakfasts are punctuated with diagrams showing the birth of the universe 14,000 million years ago, the birth of the solar system 4,500 million years ago, the emergence of the rocks we're sitting on here in the Gardar region 1,500 million years ago... and the appearance of Man very recently, just 0.3 million years ago. Vertiginous. Just enough to put in perspective our presence on earth as thinking homo sapiens, the unique living being capable of questioning past and future.
To go back in time, you have to take a step back. This year, Laurent chartered an helicopter for one day to observe different sites from above, but also to land on massifs close to glaciers inaccessible by boat. He could discover new dykes, these magnificent veins of magma, note their positions and their orientations and thus add pieces to the enigma of tectonics in this part of the world.
On a smaller scale, we were less fortunate: a two-days storm kept Vagabond at the dock, giving to Laurent the opportunity to survey the glacial valley north of Narsarsuaq and to make some nice findings. But a freezing rain during his week in Greenland didn't help his fieldwork. Nonetheless, we continued to survey some observation sites with Laurent, notebook and compass in hand.
On board, always ready to question in depth and immortalize with his lens, Pierre Petit, film director, is building a documentary on this research; it's another challenge to show what is easier to explain in words than in pictures! His camera doesn't go back in time... As an off track mountaineer, he adapts to the situation, patiently sketching, tracking and capturing light when it seems to speak to him.
The Vagabond model is on display at the Paul-Emile Victor Polar Worlds Center in Prémanon (Jura, France), which is hosting the exhibition Polar Passions: When Dreams Lead to the Poles until September 30, 2026. Read the article in Le Monde and the one in Voix du Jura.
Screening of the film In the Arctic Ice, by Pia GRZESIAK and Dirk WEILER, followed by a discussion with the audience moderated by Carlos MARSAL, at 8:30 p.m.
