Ilulissat

Today was a good day. The weather brightened for us again and they were able to use the tenders to ferry guests ashore. I had a 2 hour boat trip booked to see the Icefjord. Getting onto the tender was okay. Getting off took a bit. Rocky steps, no handrail but several very nice expedition team members helped me down. They had a shuttle bus available to take us around to the other side of the harbour for the tour. There were three small boats, each with 11 guests and again steps up. These I managed as I could hang on to the side of the boat. It was a short ride to the head of the fjord. The beauty of this spot is that there is a ridge along the bottom of the opening of the fjord which prevents the larger icebergs (calved off the glacier) from moving any further. So everything just banks up behind them until the pressure either pushes them over or breaks them up. We were lucky in that the fjord was actually very full of ice so those guests doing the walk to the lookout at the edge of the fjord had marvellous views and those of us in the boats could see these towering icebergs all jammed together. I love being with the ice like this - it’s so quiet and beautiful. It’s really hard to take photos which do the scene justice. I did try. Some of the icebergs are over 100 metres high. We were out there for about 90 minutes. They cannot go past the ice wall as it’s way too dangerous. We were with a local operator as recently the locals asked the cruise ships to stop taking guests on tours as this was obviously affecting their business and income. The season is short so they need all the business they can get. On the way back, we were a few minutes ahead of schedule, so our driver did ‘zoomies’ around the Ronald Amundsen. We had fun. Not too sure how the guests in the tender heading ashore felt!!
The shuttle buses were waiting for us at the shore and took us to the Icefjord Centre just out of town. They are clearly very proud of this centre and it’s at the start of the boardwalk to the lookout by the fjord. However, I found it a little underwhelming. The core of ice was interesting but really could have been the same piece repeated. I did like the short film on the life cycle of snow and they served decent coffee.
I then went back to the ship. Just as I got into my cabin the captain announced humpback whales in the harbour next to the ship feeding. So there was a mad dash up to deck 10 to take photos. It was wonderful. There was a group of 3 slowly moving around the ship obviously feeding. They stayed In the harbour for over an hour. I have some great shots - tails. We got a little annoyed with some smaller tour boats crowding the whales because when they did this, the whales would dive and come up somewhere else in the harbour. Luckily it’s a small harbour.
Dinner tonight was their famous seafood buffet so we all ate well. After such a big day and being so well fed, most of us adjourned to our cabins for an early night.Lue lisää