Iceland then Home

Today was a very long day.  We woke early in the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik and boarded buses for sightseeing.


We find Iceland to be a pretty desolate place.  It is all, or at least the parts we have seen, covered with lava with moss as the predominant vegetation.

Though I did find some flowers still blooming.

We toured the Reykjanes Peninsula, including this lake.


Then we went to a hot springs area to walk around.




Our last stop before lunch at a seaside restaurant was an area known for many shipwrecks.  We were surprised how far inland some of the wrecks were.


The final stop before heading to the airport was at a place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet and are gradually splitting apart.


We walked across the rift at the spot marked with the star in the above map.


Then off to the airport and the flight home.  This was a great view of two tidewater glaciers from the air as we were flying over Greenland.

Back to Reykjavik

This morning we were back in Kangerlussuaq Fjord on the way to the airport.  We transferred to
shore via zodiacs then a short bus ride to the airport.  While in the bus someone lamented that we didn't see any arctic hare or foxes on the trip.  Just at that moment a bright white arctic hare ran by the side of the bus.  It was too quick a sighting to get a photo, but at least we saw one.


This was the view from the plane shortly after takeoff.

Map

This map shows where we went in the ship.  We covered over 3100 miles.  That was longer than expected but we had to go further northwest than anticipated to find the ever-decreasing sea ice.

Kangaamiut Kangerluarsuat Fjord

Today explored via zodiac another fjord with an active tidewater glacier.

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.

Crossing Baffin Bay

Today was another one "at sea" as we crossed Baffin Bay back to the western coast of Greenland.  The most exciting sighting of the day was sperm whales.

Buchan Gulf on Baffin Island

The plan for this morning was to take the zodiacs ashore and go hiking.  As with each place we stop in polar bear country, the naturalists headed off first to scout the area for polar bears.  They will not let us land if bears are nearby and even if they have not been sited, the guides always care flare guns to scare away bears and rifles to shoot if necessary.  Before we even landed a mother bear and two cubs were sighted on a distant hillside, apparently munching away on blueberries.


They were too far away to be deemed a threat but the terrain was hilly enough that the naturalists decided they couldn't guarantee that there weren't others around.  So they created a periphery of lookouts and folks who wanted to hike could come ashore and explore on their own within it.


The sights included remains of early Inuit houses.


After lunch the boat traveled further into the Gulf and down Icy Arm with fantastic scenery and many narwhals.








For tea this afternoon our nutty hotel manager Patrick served us hotdogs and beer out on the deck.

Philpots Island

We woke this morning next to Philpots Island located at the eastern end of Devon Island.  This map shows where we have been so far.


We went out on zodiacs to explore and found walrus on the island.




There was a tidewater glacier in the distance that we were able to get fairly close to.


and some neat icebergs.

Kayaking

We woke this morning in beautiful Fram Fjord on south Ellesmere Island.  It was a calm and sunny morning so we headed out in a kayak.


The boats they have are pretty unwieldy so we spent more time struggling to keep the kayak going straight than enjoying the scenery.