Day 6 – Thursday 27 July
The ice reminded us who is boss this morning. After an early breakfast we hit the water fairly promptly having packed up camp.
A large glacier calving had caused intense waves so getting off the beach out of the swell was quite a challenge. I almost capsized before managing to push back beyond the breakers and fit my spray deck. Then we rounded the first corner and were confronted with rapidly shifting pack ice. We tried to stick together to follow the same channel through, but the ice was shifting so quickly that it wasn’t possible.
The ice was moving in all directions, there didn’t seem to be an overall trend except that it was crashing together. A chunk of ice came from my right hand side and closed up under my kayak, almost lifting me out of the water.
Five of us managed to make it into clear water, quite far out into the fjord, but the ice moves so quickly that we kept having to warn each other before another piece of ice came and closed us in. We joined back up with the others and had a much calmer paddle to the first pee stop, though even there, the surge from the ice was strong enough that we had to keep a close eye on the kayaks and drag them further up the pebble beach.
The water was much choppier for most of the day. We covered 16km in approximately 4.5 hours and were pretty much making a beeline for a boat pick up to get back into a more sheltered fjord before the winds picked up.
We stopped for a quick break at the same beach where we saw the baby reindeer and Ruben showed us the 500 year old Inuit ruins up on the hill. There are two reasonably well preserved human skeletons in chambers made of piled up stones.
On our final stretch before lunch we paddled through an area where the icebergs looked like shipwrecks dashed upon the rocks. I absolutely loved paddling out ahead and being surrounded by the ice, enjoying the solitude and listening to the soundtrack from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (a film which inspired me to actually visit Greenland rather than just dreaming about it!)
We had a very late lunch stop and completely emptied out the kayaks. And that was it. Expedition done. Our picnic was another good one. The situation had changed and so we are going to camp here for the night and get collected in the morning. Julia and I set up camp quickly and then I headed up to get a view over the icebergs then headed up to join some of the others at a might higher vantage point with a great panoramic view of the fjord. There was plenty of time before dinner and a few of us ended up chilling with a cup of tea in the teepee.
Dinner was soup followed by mushroom rice. We were settling in for a slow start when a message came through to say that we were being collected at 8:30am the next day so breakfast shifted to 7am. It was great to get our final camping dinner.
Our final couple of days were a bit up in the air because we were never sure when we would be moved over to Narsarsuaq to be within walking distance of the airport. I’ve combined the posts!
Day 7 – Friday 28 July
I slept like a baby once I had used various items of clothing to level off my rollmat. After one final look at the big icebergs nearby, we loaded up the boat and then headed off on a 30 minute boat ride (which actually did take 30 minutes as the ice didn’t trap us).
We didn’t get a chance to go to A34, the bar in Narsaq, as we just got our bags and went straight up the fjord to Qassiarsuk, a small town on the opposite side of the fjord. We had some time to shower and relax and then went for a walk around the town to see the church, the replica Inuit house and replica Viking church and longhouse.
Dinner at the Leif Eriksen hostel was tasty and it was nice to sleep in a bed.
Day 8 – Saturday 29 July
On our final day some of us went for a quick hike and then we caught our boat across to Narsarsuaq and spent what felt like forever waiting for food at a cafe. I miss the ice.
It was such a good trip and I would absolutely love to go back to Greenland.
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