Aug 18 – Kangerlussuaq - Bus Tour to the “Reindeer Glacier”
In the
morning we reached the 120-mile Kangerlussuaq Fjord and the town of the same
name.
Today we could stay in the cabin until 10:00. Breakfast was between 7:00 and 9:00 and then we went and finished packing and dressed for the day. After that we took our luggage to the Seabreeze Lounge (bar) where we would hang out until our Zodiac time was called.
For
those of us that had a bagged lunch there was an assembly station set up where
you could choose what you wanted. You had a choice of candy bars, chose a
sandwich (or 2 for those that wanted more) and several desserts and some fruit.
I
chatted with Jo Mark and found out his future plans with the ship. We sat and
waited and finally the time came to disembark.
Bittersweet,
but it was time to go. We joked about how the captain could line up the
officers and staff on water while they played “Time to Say Goodbye”. As we
boarded the Zodiacs one last time all of the guys that assisted with the
loading were saying goodbye and while we sat in the boat and rode to shore, the
Captain was outside the Bridge waving and blasting “Time to Say Goodbye”.
Several of us on the Zodiac were moved to tears.
On
shore we returned our life vests and hit the last bathroom we would see for 4
hours. We then boarded our 4X4 vehicles for the mostly bumpy ride through a
wide variety of the most beautiful natural scenery from Arctic desert to tundra
with low growing shrubs and through hilly terrain with a grand view of the edge
of the Ice Sheet in the distance.
Known
as the Greenland Ice Sheet, it is UNESCO World Heritage and covers 80 % of the
island’s surface and is second in size to the world’s only other Ice Sheet in
Antarctica. Our last stop was at the glacier, but it was hard to get high
enough to see the Ice Sheet very well. (a helicopter flight would be great over
it) We were to have an hour here, but it was shortened to a half hour due to
the flight time. I overheard one of the expedition leaders asking the driver
why we weren’t at the highest point to see it and he said due to time we
couldn’t drive there. It was still beautiful and quite honestly, it’s just a
huge sheet of ice as far as one could see, and we have seen the one in
antarctica. We drove by where our BBQ would have been. The photos from the vehicle were tough with reflections and just scratched up glass.
It was time to check in for our flight, but we were told it was running late and couldn’t check in yet. Then it was pushed back again, and it was 2 hours late. We had a nice dinner at the airport and finally they called that we could go through security.
They were quite strict there. (no phone cords like India) All cameras, iPads, computers and they wanted to know which belonged to which person. Then, they swabbed most people’s things. Lots of people weren’t prepared with proper sized toiletries, though they didn’t seem to take them away, just handed them baggies to put them in. (after being taken aside and patted down and luggage searched. One lady said she hadn’t had thorough of a pat down before.
Finally,
we got on the bus to take us to the plane, and we were off! We did get to see a
lot of the Ice Sheet from the plane. It was pretty awesome to see. There were
some little lakes and creeks at this time of year, and some were ice covered
mountains.
Kangerlussuaq, Greenland https://photos.app.goo.gl/F7kLVxXuRa9po3QN6
I'll have one more post on the travel day home and my final thoughts of the trip.
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