About an hour after we left the sound last night, the wind picked up and the fog disappeared. However at around 5.20 am this morning I was woken by the ships fog horn. It was going off at 60 second intervals, difficult to get back to sleep and only dozed until we got up at 7 am. By then we had anchored off Nanortalik, which is an island just off Greenland’s coast. We are in a sheltered bay, light breeze very smooth seas and 5 degrees with cloudy conditions.
It is a 15 minute water shuttle ride to the pier, so we are in no hurry to set off. There are a number of good sized icebergs floating in the bay and just outside it. Occasionally we see some big ones in the distance. We set off after trivia, but the tender service is slow. We get our tender tickets (33) just on 11 am but they are only calling ticket 26. It takes just over an hour for our number to be called, as we head towards the tender you can feel the cold, we are rugged up with beanies, jackets and gloves. Once on shore it does not feel too bad.
We walk around for an hour, there is not a lot to see, and head back to the ship. We are back on board by 2.30. Nanortalik means the place of the polar bears, but it is rare for them to be seen during summer, and in any case they are usually floating by as they perch on an ice floe. It is a small village with just 1400 inhabitants. There have been many different nationalities inhabit Greenland and Nanortalik, but today 70% of the population are Inuit. The houses look pretty basic but they are all colourfully painted. It is an interesting place and if we hadn’t experienced yesterday’s spectacular scenery, it may have been more appealing. It is expensive though, most tours being offered locally were all $100US or 100 euro each, for the likes of a boat tour to get up close to icebergs or to go up a fijord. Having seen both yesterday, it didn’t seem worth it.
We sail from Nanortalik about 5.30 pm. It is a spectacular sail out past some amazing scenery. There are some tight turns as we head out, not sure whether it is a narrow channel or it is to dodge the icebergs. It is like a giant parking lot for large icebergs. They are everywhere and some are very large. The captain did say he wanted to get out early and get to our next port before it got too dark to dodge the icebergs! It is a very cold 5 degrees and the wind outside of the bay is quite strong buffeting the ship. It was a spectacular sail out and required us to be on the balcony even though it was freezing.
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