August 21 - Prins Christian Sund Passage, Greenland

We spent August 20 at sea making our transit from Iceland to Greenland.  The seas were not too bad and  the usual sea day activities occurred.  The highlight of the day was the Galley Market Lunch where the galley staff pulls out all the stops preparing exquisite dishes for us to enjoy at lunch.  We walk through the galley making our choices from the truly overwhelming options. I'm including some photos here so I can remember this when I'm home eating take-out or Harris Teeter fried chicken.

After a nice day and a half at sea we arrived this afternoon at the beginning of our journey here in Greenland.  This is one of the places I haven’t been to previously. Our introduction took us to this sound or fjord with the good Danish name in the heading for this entry.  It has a  local name which is Ikerasassoaq. (I’ve no clue how you would pronounce that.)  The sound stretches for a little more than 60 miles along the southern tip of Greenland separating the main part of the island from the archipelago of little islands to its south.  

Until we actually entered the protected waters of the sound it was bitterly cold out on deck with 25 to 45 mile per hour winds.  It was also pretty rocky with 12 foot seas.  I didn’t stay outside long.   Once in the sound it was more tolerable, although I still thought it was colder than I remember most days in Antarctica.  This area is only navigable at this time of year and we did see little chunks of ice as we sailed through. By the way I think those are called growlers.

The walls on either side are rock etched with  crevasses  and convoluted formations which glaciers have carved. On the mainland side we passed a few glaciers which actually have made their way to the sea as well as others high up in the surrounding mountains.  There were a few waterfalls, but not as many as I’ve seen in some of the other fjords I’ve been able to sail through.  There is a little green visible in the rocks and I’m assuming it’s probably from mosses and lichens growing there.  On either side of the passage we could see steep, jagged mountains that soar as high as 4000 feet.  At its narrowest the sound is less than 2000 feet wide.

This and the next photo were at the beginning of the sound where the waters became more protected and calm.

You can get an idea of how the glaciers etched and carved the rock beneath them.

Despite the clouds, look at the colors of the water.

Greenland itself is a massive island. It covers nearly 850,000 sq. miles.  Its southernmost point is about 7° below the Arctic Circle and the northernmost point is just 7° shy of the North Pole.  Eighty-three percent of the island is water (ice).  It is an autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark. Geographically it's part of North America.  The majority of the 57,000 residents are Inuit, the same group that live in Alaska, northern Canada and even Siberian Russia.  One third of Greenland’s economy comes in the form of block grants from the Danish government. The majority of the rest of the economic activity stems from the fishing industry.  Greenland is abundant in minerals, but because there are very stringent regulations about mining and because of the harsh weather conditions mining for them is very difficult. The US Space Force does have a base in Greenland.  It was previously called Thule Air Base but is now named Pituffik Space Base.

We’re spending the next two days here at two of the small communities along the southern coast.  I don’t have much planned because I don’t think there’s a great deal to see.  Also I have been told that one has to be careful in going ashore because there can be lots and lots of mosquitos; in fact, in some of the tour descriptions they advise wearing hats with mosquito netting and spraying oneself liberally with insect repellent.