DORSET adventurer Bear Grylls and his team hit bad weather as they made their way across the Davies Straight towards Iceland.

The 29-year-old and his team of four endured freezing conditions as they attemp-ted to sleep with waves crashing around them.

They left Nova Scotia on July 31 in their open-topped rigid inflatable boat. Bear is hoping to skipper the first crossing of the Atlantic, via the Arctic Circle, Greenland and Iceland.

He hopes to land at John O'Groats by the end of August bagging a new world record.

Here are diary excerpts sent by Bear Grylls and his team.

August 6, 8.43pm (GMT). Bear writes: "We had a difficult decision to make about when to leave after analysing the forecast knowing we had a very narrow window to reach Greenland. The boys are tired but they knew we had to take this opportunity. We were up early at 6am refuelling, packing and we left around 11am.

"It has been seven hours of the most beautiful, spectacular scenery through the calm waters of the Southern Greenland fjords. Mountains of rock rose thousands of feet on both sides and the fjord was littered with icebergs and growlers and we saw a huge whale. We are now at the mouth of the Eastern coast of Greenland."

August 9, 4.54pm. Cameraman Charlie Laing said: "Leaving the fjords, we moved out into an eerily still calm open sea for the longest open sea leg of 721 nautical miles across the Davies Straight towards Iceland. Twelve hours later our weather window was firmly slammed shut 150 miles out. Soon our ability to pick our way through the waves disappeared.

"Bear managed to put through a call to our UK base to inform coastguards of our situation. Not until around 4pm, 24 hours from the beginning of the really bad weather, was there any sense of relief. The sight of land was the most welcome sights I have ever known. We had made it, tired and emotionally exhausted after 56 hours on the boat. Iceland ahoy."

We will be running more of Bear and his team's diary excerpts in the Daily Echo this week.