Friday, August 17, 2018

Qaqortoq, Greenland (Part 1)


Thursday, August 2

Greenland is the largest island in the world.  About 85% of Greenland is permanently covered with an ice-cap which is 2 miles thick in places.

Qaqortoq in Inuit means "the white place" which it certainly is for most of the year.  The town's coat of arms has a blue centre which represents the stream that runs through it to the sea.  Today there are about 3,500 people living in the municipality which includes the town and outlying settlements.

Greenland
Size: 873,000sqm (almost the size of Alaska)

Population: 56,326 (est. 2008)

Language: Greenlandic, Danish and English 

Capital: Nuuk

Currency: Danish Kroner

Our scheduled stop today was to the port of Nanortalik, Greenland.
We were woken relatively early by the Captain with an "important" announcement.... the weather had deteriorated overnight with high winds and a reasonable size swell so tendering was not going to be possible.  According to the Captain's wife he had a "light bulb moment" early in the morning where he decided based on the conditions that he could swap the order of our Greenland ports.  We were scheduled to call at Nanortalik on the first day and Qaqortoq the day after.  As Qaqortoq is protected by a Bay and the weather forecast was for a perfect day the Captain decided to go there on the first day and Nanortalik on the following day as the weather was predicted to clear up there overnight.  Effectively swapping the itinerary for the two ports.  What a good call by the Captain as we had perfect weather for both of our days in Greenland.  The one downside is that we had a private tour booked to the glacier in Qaqortoq and the company did not have enough boats available at very short notice so we missed out.... oh well.... we are nearly $600 better off! Hopefully we will get a refund.....

We picked up a map at the tourist office which gave us a walking trail to see all the highlights in the town.  Walking around was very easy and very pleasant if not a tad hot as we were all decked out in our woollies for the cold temperatures that had been predicted.

Qaqortoq is a beautiful quaint town with a water stream flowing through the town, flanked by many beautiful wild flowers and all the houses are painted bright colours.... real postcard scenery.

Late in the afternoon it started to cool off and the fog started to rolled in so we headed back to the ship.  The wind was picking up which was caused a bumpy ride back in the tender and a very cold Sailaway.

Tomorrow is the smaller town of Nanortalik.... hope the weather conditions are favourable and we can tender in.





















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