Kangerlussuatsiaq (Evighedsfjord)* - 65° 52' 53" N 53° 48" 37" W

 

Wow, just wow - again!

This was the view we woke up to.  It is a familiar view but one we usually see when we are hiking, not from an anchorage, on a boat! The weather was spectacular as we made our way further into the fjord.  The fjord is nearly nearly 40nm (75km) long and over 700m deep.  It cuts through 2000m high peaks so it felt a little like sailing along the Bow Valley!

Glaciers, glaciers

A tide water glacier really is something special

How many photos do we need to take??

Like something out of National Geographic - how did I get here??

Not a bad view from the galley when making lunch!

Okay, another photo!

Hanging glaciers dominated the south side of the fjord and there are several tide water glaciers that drain the Maniitsoq Icesheet. One glacier even feeds two fjords - that's a lot of ice. The mountains off this fjord are deemed some of the best mountaineering and heli-skiing anywhere ... nevermind just Greenland (sorry Revelstoke)!

The sky was cloudless and blue and the water a colour that would challenge any of our beautiful Rocky Mountain lakes.  It was even vaguely warm! We drifted in front of the glacier, watching it calf chunks of ice while we ate lunch just soaking it all in.

It looks tiny but this ice cube is likely a cubic metre and weighs (literally) a tonne

After lunch, we lassoed a bergy bit to have ice in our drinks.  This was more challenging than anticipated.  What seemed to be small chunks of ice floating in the water turned out to be huge when close to the boat.  An inconsequential bergy bit was still quite significant and is definitely not something you want to hit with the boat.  A good lesson in ice!  We found a teeny, tiny lump of ice and Sean wrangled it onto the swim platform.  It ridiculously heavy being compacted glacier ice!  

Sean lassoing ice for our drinks - MUCH heavier than it looks!

We lashed it to the swim platform and slowly sailed back down the fjord to our anchorage.  We enjoyed drinks in the sunshine sitting in the cockpit until the mozzies drove us below. 

Yep, defiantly tastes better with glacier ice!

And check out Marisa and Adriano's video @our_tern on Instagram:

Chapter 84 - Glaciers and Fjords

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*Names of places are a bit tricky.  They use both Danish and Greenlandic place names and some of the spellings vary from publication to publication.  There is also a lot of similarity between place names, not to mention the explosion of vowels and double Qs! We are doing our best but likely are making some big bloopers! Some of our favourite Greenlandic place names:

Ammaqqoq

Qeqertarsuatsiaq

Taateraat

Maniistorssuaq

Uummannaq