Two days at sea.

We spent the 27th and 28th at sea travelling from Pond Inlet to Ilulissat Greenland or Disko Bay as it is better known.
Both days were relatively calm which was better than expected. The weather had predicted swells so we were all quite happy about blue skies and calm seas. There were numerous lectures and activities organised by the crew. I particularly enjoyed the lecture by the navigator on Navigating through Ice. I think that this lecture would have been better at the start of the journey as it might have shut a few people up. It seems that when we first had issues with the pack ice and decided to bypass Herschel Island, the choices were to hurry through to see if we could avoid the ice (which we did) or go back. We had another Karaoke night on the 27th which was good fun again. However, the same guy who butchered Sailing decided to tackle the Cold Chisel song Cheap Wine, with the same results. Butchered. The trouble is that he seemed to think he did okay on both songs.
By lunch time on the 28th we were seeing ice again - this time in the form of icebergs. This is the glacial ice coming from the Ilulissat Icefjord Glacier and it became thicker the closer we came to Disko Bay. The ship had 2 pilots on board to help navigate its way through and in the end we took about 4 hours to pick our way through. While this ship is build to handle some level of ice conditions, they do like to avoid hitting the stuff. By 6pm we were waiting just outside Ilulissat as there was another ship in the harbour. The captain had cancelled many afternoon activities requiring bridge crew due to the level of ice they were dealing with so it was a quiet night for all. However, they did launch some zodiacs for those who wanted to be amongst the ice. Many people did this but the expedition team didn’t tell us that we didn’t need to wear boots until quite late in the rotation so a few missed out.
We did learn about the Greenland shark - an odd looking creature that lives for around 500 years. At first I thought they were pranking us but no, it’s a real thing.もっと詳しく