Episode 9
So our sea voyage starts:
We boarded the Polar Pioneer on a dreary wet afternoon and soon found our cabins and our way around. We are only 49 passengers; the expedition crew is a mixed bunch with a New Zealander as expedition leader, some Aussies, a Swede, a Brit/Dane, and possibly others. Of the passengers we are fairly mixed too, though most are Australian there are a group of Americans, some Swedes, a couple of Canadians who live in England, a few Brits, one from the Isle of Man, a few New Zealanders and maybe some I’ve missed.
Our first day out was a day at sea crossing the Denmark Strait. It was a beautiful day, some cloud about but only a light breeze, the sea was very calm, the sun came out in the afternoon and it got quite warm. We saw sperm whales, minke whales, I saw both them, one sperm whale went right under our bow. Some people also saw white beaked dolphins and orcas but I missed them. A great many birds around the ship and sitting on the sea, they were fulmars and kittiwakes. Some icebergs about and one we passed fairly close to had one sloping side and it was thick with birds.
We had a talk given by Adam, a Swede, on the whales, especially the Blue whale that is the largest mammal that has ever lived. The largest one ever caught was on South Georgia; it was 33m long and weighed 190 tonnes. They can blow water from their blow holes up to 9 m high. Yet these huge creatures live on the smallest, eating mainly krill and phytoplankton. Fin whales are the next largest mammals. Another interesting thing he mentioned is that the amount of krill in the oceans is around 3 times the weight of all the humans on earth. That’s one hell of a lot of krill.
Our second day out and the water is still very calm. There is much more cloud about and looking out the port hole we could see that we were anchored off a small bay. The bay I don’t think was named but the cape beside it is Kap Dalton. After breakfast we kitted up in our outdoor gear with wellington boots on our feet and life jackets over our warm clothes and boarded the zodiacs for our trip into land. We landed on a black sand beach with strategically places boulders just to make things a bit awkward. Ken the geologist gave us a short talk about the geological structure of the place. Many layers of lava one over the other, you can see them from the strata in the rock exposed by the gouging ice of passing glaciers. It is obvious too, where these glaciers have gouged out the rock forming plateaus at different levels as they slowly receded. An old hut here was built in 1900. It is looking rather sad now and beginning to fall to bits. There was no glacier here when it was built and its believed that there has been no glacier here for a thousand years or more.
Very little precipitation falls here either in the form of snow or rain. There are some plants here and there but most of the ground is just bare rocks or gravel. The clumps of bright yellow leaves are Arctic willow, its a small shrub really but here it grows flat to the ground, the yellow leaves being its autumn colour, an odd plant here and there is still green. There are also some lovely little red or russet coloured plants; they offer such a contrast in colour to the brown/grey of the basalt rock. Interesting formations on the ground are known as ice polygons. These can cover quite an area, each one adjoining the next, let me try and explain them: To start with there is an area of a few square metres that is flat and maybe covered with mosses or lichens, and around that area are much larger rocks; these larger rocks form lines that criss cross each other. They are formed over thousands maybe millions of years and created by the freezing and thawing of the ground. Each time it freezes the rock and gravel is lifted a little, when it thaws the smaller rocks fall into the cracks shoving the bigger ones off to the side. It’s a slow process and as we wandered about we could see these polygons in various stages of their evolution. On a bit of black sand some people saw a polar bears foot print and also that of an arctic fox. Our guides carry guns when we go ashore and precautions are taken in case Polar Bear should be about as they can be very dangerous animals. Musk oz can also be about here but its unlikely that either will be present here at this time, the musk oz need tundra to graze on and the polar bears prefer to be on the ice.
Looking up high into the hills around us we saw glaciers and on the high horizon is the white of a glacier that leads back onto the Greenland ice cap. The ice cap is only about 15 k’s from here.
All back on board after a hiccup with one of the outboard motors on a zodiac we headed off northward again. Saw a group of seals in the water directly in front of us, when we got really near they quickly swam off. Soon after lunch we cruised up Rømer fjord for our second landing of the day.
Again Ken the geologist gave a short talk on the geology of the area, this is almost the northern extremity of the basalt and lava flows. It is quite similar to our last landing except that here there are a few hot springs, but they are not geothermal springs like we saw in Iceland though I can’t really say I understand how they come to exist; it’s something to do with water trapped in the basalt. The water does not have the sulphur fumes that you normally associate with hot springs. It is about 60C when it comes out of the ground and in this cold place soon looses its heat. What is most interesting is the little mound that has built up around the spring. It must be from the minerals in the water I think. One now resembles a wishing well in shape and size, the water is 60C and its about 89 cm deep. Just how it came to build itself into this shape no one could explain. Another one was also built up similar to this but it was also on a mound of small stones that are different to the basalt here. The geologist put forward the theory that during times when the springs are more active, like in the spring melt, then they spit up the odd stone or two. It’s as good a theory as any and no one has yet come forward to contradict him. The one on the mound looked like the water was coming from a tiny spigot in the top of a rock covered with mosses. Lovely long brown mosses grow in the warmest water.
Because of the warmth and moisture from the spring there is a lot more plants here; a small slope was covered in various autumn colours. In a small area there is a plant growing that is the only one of its type found here, its nearest know habitat is in the Azores, thousands of miles away. Probably been carried here by birds:
Many bones are scattered about here, it is a popular hunting ground for the native people, an Inuit tribe, they have a hut here. Really these people are not as native here as the descendents of the Norse, as they have only been on Greenland since the early 20th century, the Norse have been here for 1000 years. Anyway, they come here and hunt seals and whatever they can get, our Naturalist pointed out some Narwhal bones. This is a whale closely related to the Beluga whale and it has a long tusk that is an overgrown tooth on the left-hand side. Mostly it is males that have this tusk.
We had been lucky with the weather, although not sunny the cloud was fairly high, there was only the gentlest of breezes and the sea was very flat. These sorts of conditions are extremely rare in this area apparently. From here south some ways was the last bit of the Greenland coast to be explored and chartered because of the lousy weather. The air temperature was around 4C to 5C, but we all got quite warm walking about. No hiccup with the outboard this time.
Our first landing on Friday morning was just near Kap Steward on Scoresby Sund. Before breakfast I had been up on the bridge and could see the musk ox, 2 of them, that were on shore, on a small plateau above the beach grazing. They disappeared into a ravine a couple of times but then wandered out again.
We set off for shore and landed on the sandy beach, our geologist gave us a run down on the geology, we now have sandstone, with some granite rocks having fallen from higher up. In places the sand is pink and this is because there are trillions of garnets the size of a grain of sand. There is some lovely pink pieces of granite too. The sand is light and very fine. Small bits of ice clutter the beach, they are the remains of the many ice-bergs that have been washed ashore and broken up or just melted. A couple of huts here, one in a very dilapidated state, the other somewhat better. The local people use them for hunting expeditions. Outside one we saw the remains of a dead dog, it had a collar still on it and had been tied up, something had eaten its innards.
Don, our leader had been off to reconnoitre the best way for us to get as near as possible to the musk ox, when we came back most of us joined him on a stalking expedition. We were quite successful as we didn’t spook them and one looked at us for quite a while then came even closer. David managed to get some good video shots of them, but to me, even with the binoculars they were just two blobs in the distance, the best view of any detail is on video These look to be larger animals than what we saw in Alaska years ago. Of course how much is fur/hair and how much actually body mass is hard to tell, but I do remember from Alaska that the wool from these animals is extremely light and that the insulation qualities is something like 3 times that of wool. Here, they use the skin but I don’t think they use the fur/hair in the same manner, it isn’t spun into yarn.
Our afternoon excursion was into the settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit, yes I have spelt it right even though you all think it can’t possibly be so. This is a small settlement of native people, Eskimo or Inuit, but there also seems to be quite a few Danish around too. The lady in the tourist office was Danish, this is where we could buy a postcard €2 each $2.4 AUD, needless to say I didn’t buy many. We had been warned that sometimes the shops will only take Danish Krona and credit cards but on our visit they were much more obliging and accepted Euros and US$ as well. If you are all hoping to receive a post card from here then I hate to disappoint you but I only bought two, one I posted to my brother and family, the other to my father, I hope they reach their destinations. From what we’ve been told the chances are only 50/50 at best. That’s another reason I didn’t bother with more.
The smell was the first thing to hit me, the almost overpowering stench of dogs, sled dogs, fish, and goodness knows what else. The barking, growling, and yelping of dogs was very loud too. There were a few people out on the water in motor boats, some scooting about town on ATV’s and one of two cars about. Some snowmobiles were to be seen outside houses, but not as many as one would expect. Plenty of wooden sleds about though, so they must mainly use sleds and dogs. Around the village there were many sled dogs tied up, some had a little kennel each while others just had to sleep out in the open or in the case of a couple of groups they were tied down near the stream. These sled dogs have to be kept apart or else they will kill each other, except when they are put in traces and have a sled to pull, which is what they just love to do.
There is a hospital quite well equipped too, a kiddies playground set up by the visiting cruise ships, an indoor sports centre that seemed to be more of a large TV room than anywhere to play sport. A large school, well, there seemed to be plenty of kids around, but the school was closed. Perhaps they are still on summer holidays. There were several satellite dishes about the place so they must have the internet and satellite phone. A small hospital that seems fairly well equipped and a supermarket that keeps a range of food, hardware, electronic equipment, clothing and Christmas decorations. What more could you need! The temperature was just a little above freezing, the cloud low and thick, the breeze light and chilly, what better a summers day could you wish for:
Some of the houses were well looked after while other not so much. Most seemed to be painted the deep maroon that is popular in Sweden especially, other were blue or yellow all with white trim. Many had a sled outside as well as the dogs to pull it, and some had a musk ox skin hung up to dry. Didn’t see any polar bear skins: The village has a quota for hunting of about 50 polar bears and 180 musk ox, but it’s doubtful that such quotas are properly enforced. There was quite a bit of junk around like old packing crates, rusting bits and pieces but not a lot of garbage, but then plastic bags would very quickly be blown away.
By the time we got back to the lovely warmth of the boat the weather was closing in fast. The visibility had been reduced and we could barely see the other side of the fjord. We now are heading right up Scoresby Sund, soon we shall be in amongst the ice well and truly, but whether or not we shall be able to see very much remains to be seen.
The weather on Saturday morning wasn’t quite as bad, the fog had lifted a little and we could see the icebergs in front but not the tops of the mountains. We anchored in the middle of a fjord, Røde Ø (Red Island) fjord. Named so because of the red sandstone island off our port side: It is that colour from the oxidization of the iron in the sandstone, same as the sand in central Australia. We were soon on the zodiacs and with Adam at the helm we went of a cruise around the island. He pointed out some bird nests and a particular lichen that grows around them. It lives on the guano but can also exits on the fine particles that drift upward on the air currents so that it can live above the nests as well as below.
Another thing we saw was a basalt intrusion where the lave has flowed up through a crack in the sandstone. One of these intrusions stands just off the island, the sandstone that was once around it having eroded away over time. Facing it, it resembled the front of a church in shape, I thought so anyway. We landed on the island and walked up the tundra covered slope to get a view over all those icebergs in the fjord. It was quite crowded just beyond where the ship was anchored. We saw our few kayakers skimming along right below some big bergs.
We climbed back into the zodiacs and went for a tour around the bergs. You can let your imagination run wild and see all sorts of things in these bergs. I saw a wellington boot, the Sydney opera house is fairly common, caused by the way many bergs slowly alter there position in the water so that you get a series of water ridges and dents that give them a shell like appearance. Two eyes and a mouth in a face was another, and a small patch of mushrooms. Have no idea how the mushrooms came to be formed. Some of these icebergs even have little waterfalls cascading down them from the ice melting faster at the top. Some are the most incredible blue colour, probably the ice is thousands of years old and very compressed. Archways and holes are quite common and a few big caves. We got so close we could touch one, but it was only a low one, you keep well away from high ones as they and turn over without warning. The water was so clear we could see some of the massive parts of these bergs that was underwater. Only 10% is above water if they are floating, a few of the big one were grounded in the shallower water. We also crossed a bit of the small chunks of ice and had formed a pack, the poor zodiac chugged its way through this field. The ice isn’t solid here but it could very soon become so if the temperature dropped. After 2 hours cruising around the bergs in the drizzling rain we were all rather cold and as soon as we were back in the warmth on board we headed to the dining room for a hot drink.
This afternoon we went in Hare fjord. The cloud had broken up somewhat and the sun came out. Before we left the ship some of us, me included had seen a mush ox on shore. After we landed we headed up the blueberry and birch covered slope that is brilliant in its autumn colours, it was much higher than what it appeared to be when we first started out. Up and up we went, then we came to the top of a ridge but no musk ox were in sight. Don, our guide had hoped to spot and arctic fox or hare around one of the two lakes that were now below us but we didn’t find either. We walked down to the lake and came back down through a red sandstone gorge. As we were all wearing wellington boots it didn’t matter that we had to cross the stream several times on the way. In the lower part of the gorge the remaining ice from a nearly melted glacier clings to the most shaded side and we had to climb past this ice. The blueberry and crow berry bushes in here had some lovely berries on them and I picked a few on the way. It was a lovely walk on a lovely afternoon with the sun shining.
We hadn’t seen any lemmings either but those little chaps we were probably walking on as they live in little burrows under the tundra tufts.
In the afternoon sunlight we cruised back down the fjord past hundreds of icebergs the captain guiding us safely through. We could see the tops of the mountains and they looked to be dusted with fresh snow. We hadn’t realized how high they were until one of the guides told us that the fjord is 3 knots wide, that’s around 6k’s and those mountains are 6,000 ft high (1800m). Just a few k’s inland from here the Greenland icecap is 3k’s thick and rises several thousand feet above sea level.
© Lynette Regan 1st September 2007
So our sea voyage starts:
We boarded the Polar Pioneer on a dreary wet afternoon and soon found our cabins and our way around. We are only 49 passengers; the expedition crew is a mixed bunch with a New Zealander as expedition leader, some Aussies, a Swede, a Brit/Dane, and possibly others. Of the passengers we are fairly mixed too, though most are Australian there are a group of Americans, some Swedes, a couple of Canadians who live in England, a few Brits, one from the Isle of Man, a few New Zealanders and maybe some I’ve missed.
Our first day out was a day at sea crossing the Denmark Strait. It was a beautiful day, some cloud about but only a light breeze, the sea was very calm, the sun came out in the afternoon and it got quite warm. We saw sperm whales, minke whales, I saw both them, one sperm whale went right under our bow. Some people also saw white beaked dolphins and orcas but I missed them. A great many birds around the ship and sitting on the sea, they were fulmars and kittiwakes. Some icebergs about and one we passed fairly close to had one sloping side and it was thick with birds.
We had a talk given by Adam, a Swede, on the whales, especially the Blue whale that is the largest mammal that has ever lived. The largest one ever caught was on South Georgia; it was 33m long and weighed 190 tonnes. They can blow water from their blow holes up to 9 m high. Yet these huge creatures live on the smallest, eating mainly krill and phytoplankton. Fin whales are the next largest mammals. Another interesting thing he mentioned is that the amount of krill in the oceans is around 3 times the weight of all the humans on earth. That’s one hell of a lot of krill.
Our second day out and the water is still very calm. There is much more cloud about and looking out the port hole we could see that we were anchored off a small bay. The bay I don’t think was named but the cape beside it is Kap Dalton. After breakfast we kitted up in our outdoor gear with wellington boots on our feet and life jackets over our warm clothes and boarded the zodiacs for our trip into land. We landed on a black sand beach with strategically places boulders just to make things a bit awkward. Ken the geologist gave us a short talk about the geological structure of the place. Many layers of lava one over the other, you can see them from the strata in the rock exposed by the gouging ice of passing glaciers. It is obvious too, where these glaciers have gouged out the rock forming plateaus at different levels as they slowly receded. An old hut here was built in 1900. It is looking rather sad now and beginning to fall to bits. There was no glacier here when it was built and its believed that there has been no glacier here for a thousand years or more.
Very little precipitation falls here either in the form of snow or rain. There are some plants here and there but most of the ground is just bare rocks or gravel. The clumps of bright yellow leaves are Arctic willow, its a small shrub really but here it grows flat to the ground, the yellow leaves being its autumn colour, an odd plant here and there is still green. There are also some lovely little red or russet coloured plants; they offer such a contrast in colour to the brown/grey of the basalt rock. Interesting formations on the ground are known as ice polygons. These can cover quite an area, each one adjoining the next, let me try and explain them: To start with there is an area of a few square metres that is flat and maybe covered with mosses or lichens, and around that area are much larger rocks; these larger rocks form lines that criss cross each other. They are formed over thousands maybe millions of years and created by the freezing and thawing of the ground. Each time it freezes the rock and gravel is lifted a little, when it thaws the smaller rocks fall into the cracks shoving the bigger ones off to the side. It’s a slow process and as we wandered about we could see these polygons in various stages of their evolution. On a bit of black sand some people saw a polar bears foot print and also that of an arctic fox. Our guides carry guns when we go ashore and precautions are taken in case Polar Bear should be about as they can be very dangerous animals. Musk oz can also be about here but its unlikely that either will be present here at this time, the musk oz need tundra to graze on and the polar bears prefer to be on the ice.
Looking up high into the hills around us we saw glaciers and on the high horizon is the white of a glacier that leads back onto the Greenland ice cap. The ice cap is only about 15 k’s from here.
All back on board after a hiccup with one of the outboard motors on a zodiac we headed off northward again. Saw a group of seals in the water directly in front of us, when we got really near they quickly swam off. Soon after lunch we cruised up Rømer fjord for our second landing of the day.
Again Ken the geologist gave a short talk on the geology of the area, this is almost the northern extremity of the basalt and lava flows. It is quite similar to our last landing except that here there are a few hot springs, but they are not geothermal springs like we saw in Iceland though I can’t really say I understand how they come to exist; it’s something to do with water trapped in the basalt. The water does not have the sulphur fumes that you normally associate with hot springs. It is about 60C when it comes out of the ground and in this cold place soon looses its heat. What is most interesting is the little mound that has built up around the spring. It must be from the minerals in the water I think. One now resembles a wishing well in shape and size, the water is 60C and its about 89 cm deep. Just how it came to build itself into this shape no one could explain. Another one was also built up similar to this but it was also on a mound of small stones that are different to the basalt here. The geologist put forward the theory that during times when the springs are more active, like in the spring melt, then they spit up the odd stone or two. It’s as good a theory as any and no one has yet come forward to contradict him. The one on the mound looked like the water was coming from a tiny spigot in the top of a rock covered with mosses. Lovely long brown mosses grow in the warmest water.
Because of the warmth and moisture from the spring there is a lot more plants here; a small slope was covered in various autumn colours. In a small area there is a plant growing that is the only one of its type found here, its nearest know habitat is in the Azores, thousands of miles away. Probably been carried here by birds:
Many bones are scattered about here, it is a popular hunting ground for the native people, an Inuit tribe, they have a hut here. Really these people are not as native here as the descendents of the Norse, as they have only been on Greenland since the early 20th century, the Norse have been here for 1000 years. Anyway, they come here and hunt seals and whatever they can get, our Naturalist pointed out some Narwhal bones. This is a whale closely related to the Beluga whale and it has a long tusk that is an overgrown tooth on the left-hand side. Mostly it is males that have this tusk.
We had been lucky with the weather, although not sunny the cloud was fairly high, there was only the gentlest of breezes and the sea was very flat. These sorts of conditions are extremely rare in this area apparently. From here south some ways was the last bit of the Greenland coast to be explored and chartered because of the lousy weather. The air temperature was around 4C to 5C, but we all got quite warm walking about. No hiccup with the outboard this time.
Our first landing on Friday morning was just near Kap Steward on Scoresby Sund. Before breakfast I had been up on the bridge and could see the musk ox, 2 of them, that were on shore, on a small plateau above the beach grazing. They disappeared into a ravine a couple of times but then wandered out again.
We set off for shore and landed on the sandy beach, our geologist gave us a run down on the geology, we now have sandstone, with some granite rocks having fallen from higher up. In places the sand is pink and this is because there are trillions of garnets the size of a grain of sand. There is some lovely pink pieces of granite too. The sand is light and very fine. Small bits of ice clutter the beach, they are the remains of the many ice-bergs that have been washed ashore and broken up or just melted. A couple of huts here, one in a very dilapidated state, the other somewhat better. The local people use them for hunting expeditions. Outside one we saw the remains of a dead dog, it had a collar still on it and had been tied up, something had eaten its innards.
Don, our leader had been off to reconnoitre the best way for us to get as near as possible to the musk ox, when we came back most of us joined him on a stalking expedition. We were quite successful as we didn’t spook them and one looked at us for quite a while then came even closer. David managed to get some good video shots of them, but to me, even with the binoculars they were just two blobs in the distance, the best view of any detail is on video These look to be larger animals than what we saw in Alaska years ago. Of course how much is fur/hair and how much actually body mass is hard to tell, but I do remember from Alaska that the wool from these animals is extremely light and that the insulation qualities is something like 3 times that of wool. Here, they use the skin but I don’t think they use the fur/hair in the same manner, it isn’t spun into yarn.
Our afternoon excursion was into the settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit, yes I have spelt it right even though you all think it can’t possibly be so. This is a small settlement of native people, Eskimo or Inuit, but there also seems to be quite a few Danish around too. The lady in the tourist office was Danish, this is where we could buy a postcard €2 each $2.4 AUD, needless to say I didn’t buy many. We had been warned that sometimes the shops will only take Danish Krona and credit cards but on our visit they were much more obliging and accepted Euros and US$ as well. If you are all hoping to receive a post card from here then I hate to disappoint you but I only bought two, one I posted to my brother and family, the other to my father, I hope they reach their destinations. From what we’ve been told the chances are only 50/50 at best. That’s another reason I didn’t bother with more.
The smell was the first thing to hit me, the almost overpowering stench of dogs, sled dogs, fish, and goodness knows what else. The barking, growling, and yelping of dogs was very loud too. There were a few people out on the water in motor boats, some scooting about town on ATV’s and one of two cars about. Some snowmobiles were to be seen outside houses, but not as many as one would expect. Plenty of wooden sleds about though, so they must mainly use sleds and dogs. Around the village there were many sled dogs tied up, some had a little kennel each while others just had to sleep out in the open or in the case of a couple of groups they were tied down near the stream. These sled dogs have to be kept apart or else they will kill each other, except when they are put in traces and have a sled to pull, which is what they just love to do.
There is a hospital quite well equipped too, a kiddies playground set up by the visiting cruise ships, an indoor sports centre that seemed to be more of a large TV room than anywhere to play sport. A large school, well, there seemed to be plenty of kids around, but the school was closed. Perhaps they are still on summer holidays. There were several satellite dishes about the place so they must have the internet and satellite phone. A small hospital that seems fairly well equipped and a supermarket that keeps a range of food, hardware, electronic equipment, clothing and Christmas decorations. What more could you need! The temperature was just a little above freezing, the cloud low and thick, the breeze light and chilly, what better a summers day could you wish for:
Some of the houses were well looked after while other not so much. Most seemed to be painted the deep maroon that is popular in Sweden especially, other were blue or yellow all with white trim. Many had a sled outside as well as the dogs to pull it, and some had a musk ox skin hung up to dry. Didn’t see any polar bear skins: The village has a quota for hunting of about 50 polar bears and 180 musk ox, but it’s doubtful that such quotas are properly enforced. There was quite a bit of junk around like old packing crates, rusting bits and pieces but not a lot of garbage, but then plastic bags would very quickly be blown away.
By the time we got back to the lovely warmth of the boat the weather was closing in fast. The visibility had been reduced and we could barely see the other side of the fjord. We now are heading right up Scoresby Sund, soon we shall be in amongst the ice well and truly, but whether or not we shall be able to see very much remains to be seen.
The weather on Saturday morning wasn’t quite as bad, the fog had lifted a little and we could see the icebergs in front but not the tops of the mountains. We anchored in the middle of a fjord, Røde Ø (Red Island) fjord. Named so because of the red sandstone island off our port side: It is that colour from the oxidization of the iron in the sandstone, same as the sand in central Australia. We were soon on the zodiacs and with Adam at the helm we went of a cruise around the island. He pointed out some bird nests and a particular lichen that grows around them. It lives on the guano but can also exits on the fine particles that drift upward on the air currents so that it can live above the nests as well as below.
Another thing we saw was a basalt intrusion where the lave has flowed up through a crack in the sandstone. One of these intrusions stands just off the island, the sandstone that was once around it having eroded away over time. Facing it, it resembled the front of a church in shape, I thought so anyway. We landed on the island and walked up the tundra covered slope to get a view over all those icebergs in the fjord. It was quite crowded just beyond where the ship was anchored. We saw our few kayakers skimming along right below some big bergs.
We climbed back into the zodiacs and went for a tour around the bergs. You can let your imagination run wild and see all sorts of things in these bergs. I saw a wellington boot, the Sydney opera house is fairly common, caused by the way many bergs slowly alter there position in the water so that you get a series of water ridges and dents that give them a shell like appearance. Two eyes and a mouth in a face was another, and a small patch of mushrooms. Have no idea how the mushrooms came to be formed. Some of these icebergs even have little waterfalls cascading down them from the ice melting faster at the top. Some are the most incredible blue colour, probably the ice is thousands of years old and very compressed. Archways and holes are quite common and a few big caves. We got so close we could touch one, but it was only a low one, you keep well away from high ones as they and turn over without warning. The water was so clear we could see some of the massive parts of these bergs that was underwater. Only 10% is above water if they are floating, a few of the big one were grounded in the shallower water. We also crossed a bit of the small chunks of ice and had formed a pack, the poor zodiac chugged its way through this field. The ice isn’t solid here but it could very soon become so if the temperature dropped. After 2 hours cruising around the bergs in the drizzling rain we were all rather cold and as soon as we were back in the warmth on board we headed to the dining room for a hot drink.
This afternoon we went in Hare fjord. The cloud had broken up somewhat and the sun came out. Before we left the ship some of us, me included had seen a mush ox on shore. After we landed we headed up the blueberry and birch covered slope that is brilliant in its autumn colours, it was much higher than what it appeared to be when we first started out. Up and up we went, then we came to the top of a ridge but no musk ox were in sight. Don, our guide had hoped to spot and arctic fox or hare around one of the two lakes that were now below us but we didn’t find either. We walked down to the lake and came back down through a red sandstone gorge. As we were all wearing wellington boots it didn’t matter that we had to cross the stream several times on the way. In the lower part of the gorge the remaining ice from a nearly melted glacier clings to the most shaded side and we had to climb past this ice. The blueberry and crow berry bushes in here had some lovely berries on them and I picked a few on the way. It was a lovely walk on a lovely afternoon with the sun shining.
We hadn’t seen any lemmings either but those little chaps we were probably walking on as they live in little burrows under the tundra tufts.
In the afternoon sunlight we cruised back down the fjord past hundreds of icebergs the captain guiding us safely through. We could see the tops of the mountains and they looked to be dusted with fresh snow. We hadn’t realized how high they were until one of the guides told us that the fjord is 3 knots wide, that’s around 6k’s and those mountains are 6,000 ft high (1800m). Just a few k’s inland from here the Greenland icecap is 3k’s thick and rises several thousand feet above sea level.
© Lynette Regan 1st September 2007
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