6th – 7th – Crossing to Greenland

We spent two days crossing from Svalbard to Greenland, heading out the night of the 5^th and arriving at our anchoring point around 1630 the 7^th, several hours before the planned arrival. This was possible due to near excellent conditions during the crossing – despite being exposed the seas were calm and we encountered only little swell. The 7^th started with clouds/haze in the distance obscuring the sunrise and it stayed like that most of the morning when we spotted Greenland in the distance. At that point we caught up with the mist and visibility dropped to almost nothing until during lunch when we came out of it and we got our first clear view of Greenland’s east coast. We entered Copeland Fjord and anchored for the day.

Kittiwake. 

Just chugging along.

During the crossing there wasn’t much to do: standing outside hoping for any sightings (we didn’t even have birds following the ship), listening to some of the lectures held by the guides, eating, and waiting. So all in all the crossing turned out to be fairly uneventful though the lectures were quite interesting (Aurora Borealis, Greenland’s history & culture, Arctic wildlife/nature etc.).

First view of Greenland.

Arriving in Greenland we were surprised by how barren it all looked at first; it looks like a mountainous moon landscape, but also animals are low in supply around here – no whales, dolphins or seals, barely any birds and no bears (though the latter wasn’t too much of a surprise). We did get to see a few musk oxen, though they were very far away and barely much more than specs in the distance.

Musk oxen.

From now on, between 2300 and 0500, there will be a staff member on watch for northern lights and of they appear a call will be made over the PA. A short one, and only one. If there goes a call out for a sighting, and it disappears there will be no more calls if a new one appears in the sky later on.

Sunset colours.