Just a quick post to described the end to an amazing day. We arrived in Skaare Fjord this morning – gentle winds, early morning sun reflecting off the snow on mountains on one side of the Fjord. A beautiful place. Then the wind came up, making the zodiac ride rather unpleasant – I opted to stay in and catch up with photo post-processing and nice conversations with others in the lounge.
Read MoreWe anchored at the end of Tanquary Fjord relatively early yesterday – skies were cloudy but at least it wasn’t snowing. Our landing site was a National Park station in MacDonald Valley – the station was closed for winter about 2 weeks ago, but it was fascinating walking around the site, looking at the small weather station, a short landing strip (with fuel stored alongside) and various pieces of equipment stored out in the open.
Read MoreThe winds died down overnight but the sky has been grey all day as we’ve sailed north into Greer Fjord and on to Tanquary Fjord. At the moment we are in McKinley Bay in Tanquary Fjord, north of 81 degrees, the closest I’ve been to a Pole! This morning I was alone on the bow for about 45 minutes – it was just beautiful, and not overly cold at 3°C.
Read MoreOur plan for this morning was to land at St Helena Island, home to a very large number of gulls as well as black guillemots & snow buntings. Mark, one of our ornithologists was hoping that we'd be able to photograph the tags on many of the birds so that he could track them. The wake-up call was supposed to be at 5:30am with first zodiac at 6:00am (we were number 2 this morning).
Read Morewe’ve just finished our crossing of the largest north water polynya in the Arctic (water surrounded by sea-ice), and we can see Canadian mountains ahead and to starboard/right. Yesterday we visited Qannaq, Greenland’s most northern town of approx 600 people. It was foggy when we arrived, but the sun came out as we strolled around, chatting to locals and enjoying the views of icebergs sliding quietly by.
Read MoreOne of the wonderful aspects of these journeys with Quark is the opportunity to learn about the part of our world that we’re visiting. We spent yesterday at sea covering several hundred kilometres travelling north along the Greenland coast – it was a perfect day to be inside with low grey clouds, a little rain and gentle seas. We had the opportunity to learn from our glaciologist , Colin Souness and ornithologist, Fabrice Genevois.
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