Journal

Arctic, Greenland, Photography, Travel Gerald FitzGerald Arctic, Greenland, Photography, Travel Gerald FitzGerald

Scoresby Sund and Ittoqqortoormitt 16/08/14

Overnight and this morning the ship sailed further down the east coast of Greenland and entered Scoresby Sund, the largest fjord system in the world covering about 38,000 sq kilometers and whose arms at times extend about 350 kilometres inland from the coast.

We will be visiting the Innuit village of Ittoqqortoormitt a hunting community perched at the edge of the fjord and numbering about 450 people. They town's dock is not large enough to accommodate our ship so we will have a wet landing on zodiacs to the shoreline in front of the town....

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Greenland, Arctic, Photography, Travel Gerald FitzGerald Greenland, Arctic, Photography, Travel Gerald FitzGerald

Greenland and at sea 15/08/14

Arrived this morning in Kejser Franz-Josepph Fjord, East Greenland  and we have sailed from 80 degrees North at the top of Spitsbergen to 73 degrees North at our present location. Because we are 7 degrees farther south we are once again seeing sunsets at about 11:30 pm and sunrise at about 3:30 am.

The intercom went off at about 6:30 this morning, a call from the captain to tell us that a school of humpback whales were swimming and feeding around the ship and so we tumbled into our clothes and up to the 6'th level deck where there is an Observation lounge area surrounded on three sides by floor to ceiling windows and access to the open deck. Wind was chill and the temperature about 3 or 4C, frigid. Whales would spout and rise to the surface, breathe and sink back into the water, 1 or 2 at a time and about 200 or 300 metres off the side of the ship....

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