Friday – Tassilaq, Greenland (Not…)
Today, we were due to visit Tassilaq, in Geenland. I was awoken at about 4am by a strange crunching, bashing sound, and looked out of the porthole, only to see massive chunks of ice… lots of them…. floating past. After the greenery of Iceland, I was slightly surprised; I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but I suppose I rather expected Greenland to be a bit like Iceland… only bigger. I went back to bed pondering over whether or not I’d brought enough wintery clothes with me – it being July n’ all.
At 7:30am, my alarm went off. I’d set it for that time because we’d been told that tender operations would commence at 8am, and run throughout the day until 5pm. I figured I’d miss the first rush for tender tickets, have a leisurely breakfast and then take a tender ashore to experience my first Greenland port at first hand.
When I looked out of the window, I was amazed to see magnificent snowy mountains, and a sea of ice and glaciers. I knew then that I would need the warmest pair of walking trousers I have with me (and was wishing I’d brought my walking boots and chunky winter fleece with me), and was just in the process of putting them on when an announcement came over the PA, from the Captain. He informed us that, having tried to find a way through the ice since 4am, and failed, sadly we would not be able to visit Tassilaq today, and would be moving on to the next port.
I abandoned putting on my warm walking trousers and resorted to the ones that I’ve been wearing around the ship since Tilbury (they’ll be able to walk by themselves by the time I get back). I grabbed my camera case and headed upstairs to the back deck.
The scenery was absolutely stunning; snowy mountains and glaciers stretched right across our field of view, with a field of ice in front, preventing any approach to the land. And that wasn’t all; much to the delight of the crowds of passengers on every available deck space, there were whales… several of them, in fact. Every now and then, one would break the surface of the sea, and people would cheer when they saw either a water spout or… the best of all…. a tail, as it returned to the depths.
The problem with whales, of course, is that they’re very difficult to either photograph or video. You don’t know when, or where, they’re going to surface, and by the time you’ve turned your camera in the right direction, they’ve gone again. Also; unless, you have a particularly impressive zoom lens, they’re too far away anyway, and any photo that you are likely to snap will just look like a black splodge in the sea.
Apparently, there were Minkies and Humpbacks… I saw spouts several times, and one or two tails… and there’s definitely something impressive, and slightly humbling, about knowing that the beasts are out there, in the waters just alongside the ice flows. I was just kicking myself for not having packed my binoculars!
Needless to say; as we move on towards our next destination (which is also in Greenland… fingers crossed we don’t run into the same problem), it’s back to business as usual. Today has suddenly turned into a sea-day, and so I’ll be running classes this afternoon.
