Greenland – Day 3 – Unknown Longitude

Greenland – Day 2 can be found here.

“Far to the north, hidden behind merciless barriers of pack ice, lie expanses of land that cast a spell over you. Huge imaginary gates, their hinges fixed to the horizon, seem to guard these land areas. Slowly the gates swing open and you enter another world where man is insignificant amidst the awe-inspiring vastness of lonely mountains, fjords and glaciers.”

– Louise Arner Boyd

We woke this morning to this:

Absolutely beautiful. Words cannot describe, though Ms. Arner Boyd did a far better job than I ever could.

But there was news, too – this beauty came at a price. We would not be able to breach the pack ice and cruise the Skjoldungen fjord.

So, on to Plan B. Or was it H at this point? We would cruise south down the coastline until we found a suitable spot for zodiac cruising and – potentially – landing.

But who cares when you’ve got a view like this?

It’s tough to improve on a morning like this but were determined to try – with a subarctic swim.

I think the other guests thought we were a bit odd, swimming in the pool while they were walking the track in their parkas. But the Cloud kept the pool warm enough, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

After, we took in a series of lectures including a behind-the-scenes look at Frozen Planet 2 – delivered by expedition team member Justin, who also works as a wildlife filmmaker.

It was fascinating to hear how hundreds of thousands of dollars and weeks of time for multiple camera operators – both on water and below water – are often needed to get just a few seconds of footage. And unreal to see everything they went through to get that precious footage – from withstanding hurricanes at sea to diving in -35C weather.

After, we had another great briefing from expedition member Ace on the habits of migratory birds and the ongoing efforts both to study and protect these birds. Of particular interest was the fact that birds’ migration patterns were only discovered in the 1820s after a bird landed in Europe with an African spear embedded in it.

Previously, theories around bird migration from past philosophers such as Aristotle had focused on the notion of birds transforming into other creatures – such as frogs – or, later, that they hibernated or otherwise disappeared. Seems strange to think it took so long to discover the truth of what was happening.

On to the Grill, where we braved the chilly weather to get ourselves some more burgers and hot dogs. (We had behaved ourselves for an entire day, after all, so we all thought we deserved a reward.)

Drawing near the end of lunch, we received the fateful announcement – a potential passage through the ice had been discovered, and the ship would be doubling back to see whether we might be able to launch zodiacs and even make landfall on Greenland.

Accustomed as we were to zodiac excursions, we nevertheless retired to our quarters to once more lay out our kit and check to ensure we had all the necessary supplies for a Greenlandic landing. We would be dressing a lot more warmly than we had in the British isles – with rain pants and parkas, and gloves and hats in reserve if needed.

As H-hour drew near, we once more marshalled ourselves in the Restaurant, ready to deploy on a moment’s notice if necessary.

The first zodiac group would consist of the “pole-to-polars” – the venerable group of veteran cruisers who had been on the Cloud since February, starting with a trip to the Antarctic. But given that they were launching all zodiacs – and operating both embarkation points – we expected that the process would move quickly, and that we would soon be underway.

We also brought down our regular boots along with our Bog boots, so that we could leave our Bogs in the mudroom after our cruise, thereby limiting the mess (and contamination) brought into the rest of the ship.

We sat. We played cards. We waited.

And then our turn came.

It was an utterly incredible zodiac cruise. We started off by setting off amongst the drifting ice, and then our driver used the nose of the zodiac to push open two sizeable drifts so that we could make our way further down the inlet. We swung past towering icebergs and poked our zodiac’s nose into the gaps in basalt mountains. We watched freshly-formed waterfalls cascade down the rocks, and the kids reached their fingers into the frigid waters.

And then we landed.

We’d been nervous about our first wet-water landing, but Silversea handled it effortlessly. Even our daughter – who is sadly Bogs-less due to sizing issues – had no trouble making it ashore with her feet dry.

And so all of us were able to enjoy that too-brief moment ashore on Greenland, and feel that pure, simple joy of discovery.

Absolutely unreal.

This is why it’s so important to go with a professional expedition team. Because they can take those setbacks and turn them into victories. They did it when Dunvegan was cancelled in favour of the Shiant Isles, and again when Skjoldungen was cancelled in favour of “Darryn’s Landing”.

And it’s important to remember that that the penalty for failure is high here. All the more reason to cruise with a capable crew.

But there was some bad news – we returned too late for trivia, so we had to sit this one out. (As did the rest of our team.) Though Daniel did very kindly award my son some points during the recap, when he proved to be the only one in the room who knew that the dodo went extinct in the 17^th century.

Trivia completed – and partial prize points in hand – we returned to the Observation Lounge, where I attempted to bang out as many words as possible in about 20 minutes time, then we were off to the expedition briefing.

Again, a bit of mixed news – we’re scheduled to cruise Prince Christian Sund tomorrow morning, but last they’d heard the original entrance was closed in with ice. So we might have to go the long way. But we’re still expecting to arrive in time to visit the village of Aappilattoq by early afternoon. The village has only around 100 inhabitants, and hunting and fishing are the main occupations here.

And a bit of surprising news – apparently, my name has come up in the kayak lottery. So my wife is planning to take the kids into Aappilattoq and I will instead be paddling off the Cloud in a two-person kayak. Or at least, that is the plan – I am part of the second group and ice has been unpredictable, so this might not unfold quite as expected.

After the expedition briefing, we took in some of the ‘recaps and precaps’ – which, I’m sad to say, I’ve missed up until now. They’re very good – several of the expedition team members take just a few minutes to come up with some thoughts on various topics of interest.

This time it was Arctic explorer Louise Arner Boyd (quoted above), Norse navigation – specifically the ‘viking sunstone’, aka Iceland spar (more on that here – Viking Sunstone | Iceland Spar | Facts and Sources – Skjalden.com) and the Greenlandic language.

Fun fact about the Greenlandic language – the longest (unofficial) word is “Nalunaarasuartaatee-ranngualioqatigiiffissua-lioriataallaqqissupiloru-jussuanngortartuinnaka-sinngortinniamisaalinn-guatsiaraluallaqqooqiga-minngamiaasiinngooq.”

This apparently (loosely) translates to: “There were reports that they apparently – God knows for how many times – once again had considered whatever I, my poor condition despite, still could be considered to be quite adept and resourceful as initiator to put a consortium together for the establishment of a range of small radio stations.” But don’t worry – the longest official word is a mere 41 letters long.

Thankfully, Silversea also covered the more important words, including “Hello” (“Aluu”), “Thank you” (“Qujanaq”), “Goodbye!” (“Takuss”) and “Help!” (“Ikiunnga”).

Our minds still swimming with these newfound facts, we elected to take it easy tonight and order a pair of room service pizzas along with some bitter chocolate mousse. Very tasty – and the kids were asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.