Five Weeks of Food for Greenland
When you prepare an expedition for nine people and five weeks in some of the most remote parts of the North Atlantic, food becomes a mission of its own. For months, Andrea, Martin and I had been working on our food plan, calculating quantities, planning meals and trying to figure out how much nine hungry people would actually eat while sailing to Jan Mayen, East Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
Shortly before our planned departure, it was finally time to turn all those spreadsheets and lists into reality. We spent hours at the supermarket filling trolley after trolley. In the end, our provisions included around 580 eggs, 40 kilograms of pasta, 30 kilograms of potatoes and huge amounts of vegetables, dairy products, flour, rice and everything else we thought we might need during five weeks at sea.
Back on LEA, the next challenge began. We removed unnecessary packaging, sorted everything and somehow found a place for it all. Food disappeared into cupboards, lockers, boxes and every possible storage space on board. After days of preparation, we were finally ready for Greenland.
And then our expedition had to be cancelled.
Suddenly, all that carefully planned food created a completely new challenge. We still needed provisions for our new journey along the Norwegian coast, but there was far more on board than we could possibly use, especially fresh products that would not last forever.
Finding a New Destination or even a Destiny
While we were in Reine, Andy contacted the local tourist information in Moskenes and asked whether there was somewhere in the community where the food could be put to good use.
For us, there was also a very personal reason behind the idea. After the Viking ship accident in 2024, Andy, Martin and myself experienced incredible support from local people, volunteers and Norwegian authorities. Being able to give something back to Norway felt especially meaningful.
The response came quickly. The woman from the tourist information took care of everything and found a new destination for our provisions: the Ro Café in Leknes, a free café where food is handed out to people who need it. She came to LEA herself to pick up the food and organised everything from there. According to Lofotposten, the donation came at a particularly good time for the café, which relies on support to provide free food to its community.
So, only a few days after carefully packing LEA for five weeks at sea, we started unpacking her again. Boxes of vegetables came back onto deck, followed by milk, eggs, cheese and supplies from seemingly every corner of the boat. Soon, the deck was covered in food and we could finally see just how much we had actually bought.
The provisions were loaded into two cars and taken to Leknes, where they could be put to use almost immediately. What had started months earlier with food lists, calculations and preparations for Greenland suddenly had a completely different purpose.
An Unexpected Story
Our food mission even became a story in the local newspaper Lofotposten, which reported on how provisions originally intended for our Greenland expedition ended up helping people in Leknes.
Of course, this was not how we had imagined all that food leaving LEA. We would much rather have eaten it ourselves somewhere between Jan Mayen and Greenland, cooking meals at anchor in remote fjords, baking bread at sea and somehow working our way through those 580 eggs.
But since that journey was no longer going to happen, seeing the food go somewhere where it could actually be used felt really good.
Over the past weeks, many things have turned out differently from what we planned, and apparently our food was no exception. What was supposed to feed 9 people during five weeks in the Arctic ended up helping 17 people and families here in Norway instead.
Our Greenland provisions never made it across the North Atlantic, but they found a pretty good destination after all.
Saeny Blaser, Photographer & Filmmaker
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