Nuuk and Prince Kristian

Two days at sea brought us to Nuuk, Greenland.  Population 17,000.  Largest city in Greenland.  Sunset at midnight, sunup at 03:00.  And it never really got dark.  Everyone's heard the bait-and-switch story:  Greenland is ice and Iceland is green.  It's true.  It was colder than heck and rainy.  In fact, the town cancelled its scheduled fair which was to include a visit from the town's police car and a demonstration by their police dog.  So disappointing. We took a short drive around the area with a local guide who described the Greenlandic lifestyle.  As an example, in Greenland a family needs to have at least one son.  That son is taught to hunt and fish and it becomes his responsibility to keep the family member's freezers full.  Our guide was the youngest of four...girls.  So she is the one in her family who holds the hunting and fishing licenses and literally brings home the bacon.  Well, there don't seem to be pigs, so it might be something else.  She's got no car.  She's got a snowmobile and a boat.  Last year, a polar bear was spotted near one of the schools.  They didn't know how the bear came to be there, but it had to be dispensed with.  There are only four people in the area who have a license for big game and they had quite the argument over who would be the lucky guy to shoot the bear.  The winner will tell that story for the rest of his life.

Denmark heavily subsidizes Greenland, helping to provide for housing (mostly apartment blocks) and medical care.  Above that, income taxes are 42% on every DKK earned of over 6000 per month.  That's $1,000 American.  So taxes are pretty steep.  There are only a few roads in the area and most of them don't really go anywhere.  When you get out of the residential area, they just, well, they stop.

We set off for our next stop, Paamiut, Greenland.  Population 1500.  Eighth largest city in Greenland.  The weather was rough again.  They had a rock and roll night in the lounge, and we were rocking and rolling alright.  Arriving at the anchor position in Paamiut, our Captain woke us all up with the information that the seas were too high to conduct tendering operations so we're having a sea day and heading for Prince Kristian Fjord.  We decided to hang out with a camera to see if we could get any good pictures of icebergs.  Funny, for some reason Captain Atanas doesn't seem to get very close to them...

Prince Kristian Fjord was much more than we expected.  It took 6 hours to transit the sound.  This area is the very bottom of Greenland and the waterway separates the mainland ice cap from the islands around Cape Farewell.  The ice cap flows to the fjord, so we passed six glaciers.  We'll let the photos speak for themselves.

There is only one settlement along the fjord.  It's called Aappilattoq and the population is 132.  It is rumored that walking into or out of the village is possible, but practically, one moves by boat or helicopter.  Now that you know how to spell it, you can Google it!  Look closely to see the colorful houses.

Back to the glaciers:

And then we were off to Iceland!