We waved goodbye to Nuuk on a gusty and cool evening on board the Sarfak Ittuk, a ferry of the Arctic Umiaq Line that plies its trade up and down the west coast of Greenland on a weekly basis with a passenger list which seems to be 50-50 tourists and locals. Sailing along the coastline you get a great view of both the coast as well as the sea, and the setting (or not...) midnight sun to the west. I did have slight reservations when booking, as google Sarfak Ittuk and you might find images of it listing heavily after grounding in Nuuk harbour in 2012 or discover that it was 'lengthened' by over 3 metres (how?) in 2000. However my fears were groundless...
Having had a good dinner earlier with Rasmus, and with our next stop not until 7am, I checked into my very comfortable cabin and spent about 10 minutes trying to work out the 'TV' before giving up and taking a quick stroll to get my bearings around the ferry. My cabin was on the top (4th) deck at the back (stern?) on the right (port) side which meant I had a good view of the coastline from my bunk. There are about 40 cabins sleeping up to 4 people (mainly tourists), and then three different areas of couchettes which were open bunk areas (mainly Greenlanders). The cafeteria was on the 3rd deck along with a small viewing lounge and cinema at the front of deck 4. Note, the Sarfak Ittuk is definitely a ferry rather than a cruise ship, however nonetheless a very comfortable way to travel that I would highly recommend. It was also easy to reach the open decks giving panoramic views of the voyage.
I woke up the next morning as the captain announced 30 minutes until the 7.00am arrival at our first port, Maniitsoq, a town of 2,750 inhabitants, the 6th largest town in Greenland (according to Wikipedia). Here's a short video of our arrival...
Next stop at 11:00am was the island settlement of Kangaamuit, population 293, reduced from 550 in 1990. I say 'stop' rather than port, as (even) the Sarfaq Ittuk is too big to dock here and passengers embark and disembark via a tiny tender boat. Only a few people get on/off so the process is very quick, however manoeuvring our way out of there, seemed to take another 40 minutes, it what reminded me of an attempt at reversing around a corner early in my driving career!
(Left) Kangaamiut and (right) you can see how close the ship is to the rocky fjord banks.
As we pulled out into the sea from the shelter of the fjord, it became rather choppy and overcast, so I decided to take a rest day, reading and listening to audio books in my cabin, keeping an eye on the views, popping out quickly to deck when it looked really interesting outside..
(Left) Picture of me wrapped up on deck with glaciers making their way down the mountains to the fjord and (right) a stunning example of a glacial U-shaped valley. If you look carefully, you can still see the remnants of the retreating glacier at the end.
Later in the evening we approached Sisimut, one of Greenland's oldest recorded settlements and the country's second largest town with a (growing) population of close to 5,500. I took a couple of quick pictures and then decided to dive into the cafeteria for a quick Tuborg and open sandwich whilst everyone else was up on deck.
Approaching Sisimut.
Things were clearing up nicely for the evening so I went on deck to watch the midnight sun setting from deck and was not disappointed.
The next morning, clear blue skies as well as the odd iceberg greeted us as we made our way towards Aasiat, our penultimate stop, before we reached our final destination of Ilulissat and its famous iceberg fjord.
Aasiat was founded in 1763 by the son of Hans Egede (founder of Nuuk). Apparently Aasiat means 'spiders' in Greenlandic but the reason why is vague as spiders are rarely seen in Greenland, at least these days. I took a picture of the Sømandshjemmet (Seamans home), almost identical to buildings I'd seen in Nuuk and Sisimut that I had thought was accommodation for seamen, however it appears to be a fairly upmarket chain of hotels!
Leaving Aasiat only 30 minutes later, we made our way towards Ilulissat... with its icebergs.. big...
and small....,
No comments:
Post a Comment