Saturday – Iceberg-watching

Today, we’re still at sea.

Sailing conditions have been perfect; this morning started out misty, but the sun soon started burning holes in the mist as we sailed through it, occasionally bursting out into clear visibility before plunging back into the ethereal murk. On those occasions when we had clear visibility, the mountains to our starboard side (we’ve been travelling South, down the coast of Greenland) would rise up majestically out of the low-lying mist. The sea remained as calm as I’ve ever seen it; looking as smooth as treacle, with soft waves where gulls would skim only inches above the surface as they followed the ship.

With having classes in the afternoon, I spent the morning painting the mountains we’d seen at Tassilaq yesterday. About halfway through the morning, however, the captain’s voice came through the PA, announcing that a particularly large and interesting iceberg was coming up ahead, and that we’d be passing quite close to it in the next 10 minutes or so. I abandoned my painting, grabbed my fleece (cos it’s quite cold outside) and camera gear, and dashed upstairs to see what all the fuss was about.

Crowds of passengers had already got to the front deck before me to see the spectacle. Sure enough; there, floating past us was a rather magnificent iceberg. The mists had all but cleared, and the view in all directions was glorious.

I photographed it, and when it had passed, dashed downstairs back to my painting session. I simply had to break off from my mountains painting to paint what I’d just seen, and had two paintings to show to my students in the afternoon (needless to say; the iceberg was extremely popular, and I’ve had several requests for more of them).

It turned out that the iceberg that had been announced to us was only one of many that we encountered throughout the day.

During the afternoon classes, icebergs galore floated past the window, as did a whole pod of whales, much to everyone’s excitement.

When I’d finished my classes, I couldn’t wait to get back up to the open decks to watch the icebergs. There were loads of them… and lots of smaller chunks of ice that had eroded into all manner of interesting shapes.

After dinner I went to the ‘Rock and Roll’ Show in the Show Lounge, but then returned to the open deck, armed with my camera, at around 10pm, to see the sunset. The icebergs had started to thin out a little and weren’t quite so frequent now, but the warm evening light on them was glorious.

So far, apart from not having been able to visit Tassliaq due to the snow, we’ve been very lucky with the weather. Apart from a keen, cool wind on deck, the conditions have remained sunny and clear… not at all what I expected of the North Atlantic, just South of the Arctic Circle.