Category Archives: Ilulissat

Tuesday 20th August 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

… bad night.

Not at all helped by the fact that I had to get up and go hopping around the cabin for 10 minutes to try to overcome a really bad attack of cramp in both ankles. No idea why that might be. maybe it’s because I don’t have enough salt, and watching one of the staff sprinkle salt all over his chocolate ice cream this evening and tell us all just how wonderful it is, then maybe I ought to try it too – except that I don’t eat ice cream of course..

With no rush for the morning, I was in no rush either and I was comfortably beaten by the three alarms. But it’s been weeks since I’ve had a proper Sunday lie-in and a real day of rest so I reckoned that I deserved it.

We’re now in the fjord at Ilulissat, famous for its icebergs. And there are plenty in here too. They are all ground out on the terminal moraine that’s at the entrance to the fjord and it’s only when they melt a little, when there’s a really high tide or when there’s enough force in the congestion behind them that they can pass over into the sea.

They move something like a maximum of 35 metres per day but that’s not a daily total. It’s a daily average over a period of several weeks. Sometimes they won’t move at all for days.

We went out in the zodiacs to look at the icebergs but ended up whale-watching instead as a pod of fin whales and then a pod of hump-backs decided to strut their stuff right by where we were sailing. It all gave quite a surprise to the fishermen who were hauling in their long lines with halibut.

After lunch we went to town – literally. I’ve been here before but I still like the place so Strawberry Moose and I had a nice long walk out down the boardwalk to look at the ice congestion in the fjord. It really is so spectacular.

And much to my surprise I could remember the short-cut back home again.

There’s a museum in town – the birthplace of Knud Rasmussen, who probably just about beats Vilhjalmur Stefansson to the title of “Last of the Famous Polar Explorers”, so I went in there to have a look around. It was extremely interesting to me, and His Nibs found a couple of photo opportunities there.

There is an old church in the town too so on the way back to the ship I took myself over there to see it. It looked quite interesting too but it was locked up so it wasn’t possible for me to go in to inspect it.

While we’d been down at the boardwalk another cruise ship had come in. It was the MSC Orchestra with a capacity of 3200 passengers.

Watching them try to unload with a series of lighters and tenders was amusing – the weight of 240 passengers at a time on the jetty was causing it to sink below the waterline and they were wetting their shoes. They had gazebos to protect the poor dears from the sun (in the High Arctic!), all of that, and an endless procession of guides.

But 3200 visitors in a town of about 4500 is impossible, and the situation at the boardwalk must have been ridiculous.

On arriving back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a good shower and clothes wash, and then carried on the photos while we had the debriefing. And I fell asleep too.

After tea I went up to the top deck lounge and carried on with the photos until fatigue brought me back down again. I’ve now reached 19080553 from the late afternoon of 8th August. Still tons to get through but I’ll just have to keep on trucking, won’t I.

But not tonight. I’m off to bed.

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Sunday 16th September 2018 – JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

*************** THE IMAGES ***************

There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.

You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************

… I fell asleep last night as soon as my head touched the pillow.

But not as long as I would have liked because by 04:00 I was awake again. Clearly my guilty conscience is acting up again.

However I did manage to drop off (figuratively, not literally) again until the strident tone of first David Bowie and then Billy Cotton dragged me out of my stinking pit.

We then had the usual morning performance and then off to grab a coffee and watch the sun rise over Disko Bay. Beautiful it was too.

Two of the crew came to join me for breakfast but they couldn’t stay long as the team meeting had been brought forward. So I ended up mainly on my own – the usual state of affairs these days seeing as I seem now to have upset almost everyone on board ship one way or another.

This morning’s entertainment was a ride out in the zodiacs. We’re right on the edge of Disko Bay where there’s a huge glacier that calves off into the water. The trouble is though that there’s a huge subterranean terminal moraine at the head of the bay and the icebergs are too deep to pass over it.

And so they have to wait until either they melt enough to pass over the moraine or else there’s a collision from behind that forces them to capsize so that they might float over the top

Consequently the bay is packed with all kinds of icebergs waiting for the chance to leave. And then they head north on the Gulf Stream until that peters out and they are picked up by the Labrador Current that floats them back south again past Ellesmere island, Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland and on into the Atlantic for their rendezvous with the Titanic.

But if you want to see them, don’t wait too long. Global warming is such that the glacier here is breaking off and calving at 35 metres PER DAY. It won’t be very long before the glacier grounds out and then there won’t be any icebergs at all. It will all just slowly melt away.

However, I was feeling dreadful.

I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that there have been times on this journey where i really haven’t feel like going off on an outing, and today was the worst that it got. I was flat out on the bed with all of my issues to comfort me. I wasn’t going anywhere.

But our team was last out and so by the time that we were called I was able to at least struggle downstairs to the changing room and dress for the weather.

It made me feel a little better, being out in the fresh air, and we did have a really delightful morning out, weaving in and out of the icebergs in the bay. Some were large, some were small, some were high, and they were all spectacular.

We had to return for someone who had missed the boat but once we were back out we stayed out for more than 90 minutes, freezing to death in the cold weather. But the view – it was totally spectacular.

Half of the boat was missing at lunchtime. They had gone on into town for restaurant food like Mooseburgers, walrus sausage and the like, at the invitation of the Tour Director. “Running short of supplies, are we?” The cynic inside me mused.

I stayed aboard though and was accompanied to lunch by the garrulous lady from a week or so ago and, true to form, I struggled to fit a word in edgeways.

I hadn’t changed at lunchtime because we would be first off in the afternoon. Heading for the town of Ilulissat on the side of the bay.

It took an age to reach there though. Our rather timid captain didn’t want to approach too closely for fear of the ice, so were were about 7 or 8 nautical miles offshore. That’s about 12-14 kms out so you can imagine the journey that we had. And in the freezing cold too.

But judging by the mass of blood on an ice floe that we passed, our passage must have disturbed a polar bear’s lunch break.

I can’t now remember if Ilulissat is the second or third-largest city in Greenland … "it’s the third-largest" – ed … but I do remember that it has a population of about 4,500.

Another claim to fame of the town is that it possesses the most northerly football pitch that I have yet to encounter, with the “grandstand” being a large and rather solid outcrop of rock.

There was a shuttle bus running around the town to take us to different places, but I went on foot for a good look around. Amongst the exciting finds that I made was an old DAB Silkeborg bus – a type that I haven’t so far encountered. After all, it’s been years since I’ve been to Denmark.

There were several memorials to various individuals and events and as my Danish isn’t up to much, I shall have to make further enquiries about them.

The docks was the place to go so I found the bridge where there was a good spec and took a few photos, including one of a chain suspension pipe – not a bridge.

There was also an exciting find where they had been widening the road. They had been drilling down into the rock in order to weaken it to break it off, and the drill bit had become stuck. And there it was, still embedded in the rock even today.

The boardwalk was the place to go, though. Up past the shops, the petrol station and the football ground. And then past the field where they kept the sled dogs.

Everyone whom I met told me how far it was, but I kept on going on foot despite the offer of lifts; and had a really enjoyable walk. I was really striding out now and it seemed that my worries of the morning had long-gone.

There were some antique sod-house ruins on the way past. And I wasable to identify them, much to the delight of our archaeologist. And some really stunning views too. But I climbed right up to the top with Strawberry Moose who had come along for the day out.

He had his photo taken on many occasions, including a few by me, and we all relaxed and chatted at the top for quite a while.

On the way back we missed our trail and had to retrace our steps for a while. I picked up one of the staff who accompanied me and she pointed out the UNESCO heritage sign as well as a few other things such as the home of the explorer Knud Rasmussen.

The dogs took exception to our leaving the area however and set up a howling cacophony of noise as we passed by.

Back in town, I had quite a laugh. A couple of young girls had bought a tub of ice cream (in this weather!) and, not having any spoons, were scooping it out with their fingers. One girl was rather timid but the other let me photograph her.

Our departure from the port was delayed as a Danish warship called, would you believe, Knut Rasmussen wanted to enter (he wasn’t bothered about the ice). And when we eventually managed to leave the port we were treated to the sight of a couple of men butchering three seals on an ice-floe.

It made me wonder about the earlier blood.

There were whales out here – we could hear them – but not see them. And we froze to death yet again as we raced back to the ship to miss the storm that was building up.

The Naughty Table was rather subdued tonight at tea. We had a new member who had been everywhere and done everything, and wasted no time in letting us all know, even to the extent of destroying the stories of another new member.

In the meantime, Yulia the bar attendant had seen His Nibs on the way out of the boat earlier today and lay in wait for a photo-bombing session.

Sherman was on the guitar later and we all had a good evening listening and joining in when we knew the words.

But I’m thoroughly exhausted so I’m off to bed.

The photos can wait until morning.

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