Are you one of the two crazy guys who intend to sail to Greenland on a dinghy?” The man smiles at me with more curiosity than mockery. We are in the hangar of Hafnarfjordur sailing club, on the outskirts of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. In my mountaineering jacket, running shorts, sandals and a grinder in my hands, I look like anything but a sailor.
On a workbench, I am cutting small stainless steel parts that we will use to attach a foam block to the top of Sedna’s mast. Sedna is a Greenlandic sea goddess, and it is also the name we have given to our boat, an 18ft catamaran on which Tom and I are making the final preparations. A priori, and sadly for Sedna’s pride, she is the ‘dinghy’ we are talking about.
“This is not how I would describe myself. But yes, we will sail to Greenland. I let you decide whether this boat is a dinghy or not.” My interlocutor laughs. He asks me about the boat and the route we plan to take. The next day, we will leave for Isafjordur, in the northwest of Iceland. We plan to spend two to three days at sea to sail up the coast, with or without a stopover depending on the weather. Then, as soon as the winds are favourable, we will cross the Denmark Strait, whose misleading name conceals a
