Ilulissat, Greenland

Today was spectacular.  We arrived in Disko Bay this morning and after some initial excitement, pulled up to the dock at Ilulissat.  The excitement was in the form of a smallish iceberg sitting in the harbor.  Two zodiacs were dispatched to push it out of the way.  After we disembarked, we took a shuttle to see the Ilulissat Icefjord, which is a UNESCO site.  There is a nice boardwalk to a view of the stalled icebergs filling the fjord.  The face of the glacier, which is one of the fastest moving in the world, is miles back in the fjord.  The ice calving off gets stuck at a shallow place near the bay and backs up into the fjord.


The small fishing boat in the next photo is one some of us took in the afternoon to view the icebergs up close.  The one we were on was even smaller.






As I stated above, in the afternoon we boarded a small fishing boat to take a tour among the icebergs.






We had great sightings of humpback whales feeding along the face of the glaciers.  Since W had his good camera, I didn't see any point in trying to get shots with my phone.  That was a mistake.  When we returned to open water to head back to the dock, we discovered the wind and waves  had picked up.  It was a very rough ride back with waves crashing over the bow and soaking us.  W protected the camera as well as he could but either some moisture (but he buried it in rice for a couple of days and that didn't help) or just the ferocious banging as we crashed through the waves meant the camera was dead when we got back to the ship.  Presumably the pictures on the SD card are ok but we haven't been able to check them yet.  The harsh conditions meant that the last boatload of folks who were to go out was canceled, so when we left Ilulissat the captain took us along the outer edge of the glaciers where there were more humpbacks.  I managed to get some photos from a distance of a blow

and a fluke.