The motor problems kept coming so we got our hands dirty to attempt repairing it. We were desperate and ready to try about anything to resolve this failure.  We came to the final resolution that our last hope was in the hand of a good mechanic. Instead of waiting several days in Upernavik, we asked Bob  to drop us off on a wild island close enough for a few days. The main attraction was a beautiful 400m virgin rock face and the challenge to put all our survival skills to the test.  5 days later we were happy to see Bob with Dodo’s engine purring smoothly plus we bagged an amazing new route : “Brown Balls”… and a bunch of fat cod fish. We are living it up!  
As usual the climbing here doesn’t cease to amaze us: adventurous climbing on super quality lines. Perhaps the best way to describe it is to say it’s like climbing Yosemite classic cracks but with vegetable picking along the way. We love it!
As we are about to launch on a main course kind of climb that could take us a while… You may not hear from us very soon… Let see!

With the motor half fixed, Bob brought us on a committing tour through the labyrinth of iceberg filled fjords. We finally reached our main target: the little paradise of the black hole fjord, with all its spectacular big walls.  We were able to analyze the impossible wall from really close. Really close. “ Euhm that’s close enough Bob”. He almost sank a second boat in the Greenlandic fjords. We then decided to go for a warm up on the seagull filled red wall. We hoped it was red rock and not lichen that gave it this color… It was thick liken. This in addition to the grass filled cracks, the bird shit, and the laughing birds made for some pretty adventurous climbing. We split up in two teams: Ben & Nico and Oli & Sean. Starting the climb was one of the most incredible beginnings we’ve ever done!  Bob brought Dodo’s Delight right up against the base of the wall from where we had to jump on to the rock, with the intimidating black abyss of the deep sea below us. About 20 hours of climbing later we walked down the other side where Bob was waiting for us anchored next to a Bahamas like beach.  The two new routes about 400m long are called: “Seagull’s garden” and “Red chili cracker”.  Now we are back in Upernavik trying to fix the second half of the motor. Hopefully soon enough we will get back to the fjords for some more adventures.

We unleashed the boat from the harbor deck of Asiaat and set off to our first target : the Impossible wall. But first we had to sail 300 miles. Just to make things more interesting Bob threw a wrench into the motor braking it instantly, forcing us to travel by fair means and continue our voyage by sail alone. This gave some interesting situations sailing against the wind and gave us plenty of time to practice our musical skills to the rhythm of the rocking boat. This passage was Sean and Ben’s first baptism under sail. Needless to say it was a full experience and some of our delicious dinners were wasted over the side. Long periods of no wind turned the 3 days of expected sailing time into five but fortunately we were well prepared for it with all the training tools to sharpen our body for the impossible.
The sailing atmosphere across an Iceberg littered ocean felt like steering a spaceship trough a field of meteoroids. Here we are now very close to the big walls in a small Inuit village called Upernavik. As soon as the motor is fixed we’ll  finally be getting into business.

The boat is still floating…. Barely. With 600 kg of food and rock climbing gear, and 400L of water, we never thought everything would fit in. However, with some stuffing me managed to push everything into the boat and there is just about enough space left for four and a half humans. We finally met our reverend captain Bob!
He’s perfect man for the job: he seems even less organized than us. He’s 75 years old, not 65 like we communicated earlier, and in great form. In all his years of experience he only sank one boat! He used to be a fanatic rock climber before he was sailor.
The boat has a few technical issues we are trying to solve before we launch into the wild.

We had to spend a night in Ilulisat before flying further to Aasiaat to join Bob and Dodo’s Delight the next day. Luckily with no tent, the weather was flawless and we found the most beautiful spot in the world to bivy: a flat rock, view on the ocean with giant icebergs floating by and whales jumping… it was incredible. We quickly got settled in to our sleeping bags and it didn’t take long for heaven to turn into hell! Zillions of mosquito’s stared eating us alive! To make matters even better the midnight sun was still baking us in our sleeping bags. The options were either to boil or to be devoured. Not a chance in hell to fall asleep. But perfect training for the suffering to come in the forthcoming expedition. When we felt we had enough of the torture work out, we got up and started looking for other options. Fortunately we found an unlocked empty container at the airport, which we quickly transformed into our hotel room.

On the way to Greenland we did a small detour via Copenhagen to join in on the fun of watching the football world cup match Denmark- Cameroon on a big screen in the center of town. Needless to say the temperature was hot, the drinks were flowing and the instruments quickly came out. We had to do something to celebrate our last night in civilization. We then couchsurfed* a couple of hours sleep in our Viking friends Magnus’ & Villads’ house where the rats, graffiti and beatle singing Danish girls entertained us all night. It’s a miracle we didn’t miss our flight in the morning.
*(couchsurfing = equivalent of hitch hicking but for sleeping)

For the mature ears only, here is a bit of our music to put you in our expedition atmosphere.
This is another version of “Drunken Sailor” with Sean on the tin whistle and voice, Olivier on the accordion and Nico on mandolin.

That’s it! We are super psyched to be going to Greenland in a few days. No long walk-in approaches this time (last expedition in Baffin Island we walked almost 600km in total) We’re going to be approaching some remote Virgin big walls located on the west coast of Greenland by sailboat (basically straight across from Baffin Island).

According to our sources there should be a huge amount of unclimbed walls in this area. The sailboat will be our base camp/music studio and means of travel and exploration. Our adventure will not only include the climbing but also the sailing since we will have to sail trough the icebergs and all the way back across the Atlantic to Europe afterwards.

The spirit of adventure and our motivation to embark on an expedition with a smaller ecological impact and more by fair means, lead us to the idea to combine a climbing expedition with a sail boat for transportation. With a bit of research, Greenland seemed the perfect destination for this adventure.

After a few e-mails we were quickly introduced to Bob Shepton, a retired 65 years old priest. Bob has sailed all over the world (11 Atlantic crossings!) and has brought many climbing expeditions on his sailboat to explore virgin areas in the Arctic. He knows the west coast of Greenland and all its Fjords as good as his pocket. He was awarded trophies for his exploration with his boat including recently the Tilman medal.

Due to stormy weather, his boat had to be left in Greenland last season and this year he was looking for people to bring his boat back to Europe. As soon as we contacted him, he sent us some pictures of world-class virgin big walls that rise straight up from the ocean and he offered to bring us there with his sailboat. Even though originally we had other plans for this summer, his proposal was way too good to refuse and a unique opportunity we couldn’t resist.

Due to the limited size of Dodo Delight (a 10 m Westerley boat) and our large amount of music instruments only a team of 4 can join Bob on his boat. As usual Sean Villanueva and my brother Olivier will be part of the expedition. Also Ben Ditto, a very talented climber and pro photographer will join us. He climbed with us in Patagonia last year when we did the first free ascent of the South African route in Torres del Paine. The duration of the expedition will be of approximately 3 months depending on where the winds will bring us.

Stay tuned on www.xpedition.be for the music and climbing progress of this expedition

We would like to thank all our sponsors who helped make this adventure possible: The Belgian alpine club, Patagonia, Five Ten, Black Diamond, Seeonee, Sterling ropes, Belclimb.be, Petzl, Yetiworld, Careplus and Milo.

“Wednesday night, Europe Palace, MENDI, the second projection of the session does that the public enjoying a lot, many laughs and enclosedly plaudits in the course of the projection, but the credits appear, it’s ending, … with live music! Nico and Sean jump to the stage mandolin in hand and harmonica in mouth to finish off the live task, the public exploits, plaudits, shouts, hisses, laughs … party!” Read more