Midnight Sun

Today we spent all morning at sea in the Davis strait and arrived in the late afternoon at the Equip Sermia glacier, about half way up the west coast of Greenland in the Arctic Circle. The front of the glacier is about 3 miles wide and it moves about 6 feet a day.

We took the ship's polar cirkle boats—glorified zodiacs-- ashore to a small island where the crew set up a BBQ. It was quite buggy and several people were wearing mosquito nets on their heads. A short walk took us up a hill for a wonderful vantage point to see the glacier. We were about 3 miles away from it, as close as we could safely get, out of range of the waves that are caused when the glacier “calves” or breaks off into the water. The sound is like thunder.

Later that night, I went out on deck to experience the midnight sun, when the sun is still above the horizon after midnight. The ship was gliding effortlessly through the water, past blocks of icebergs. Because I was the only one on deck, there was plenty of room for my new friends silence and serenity.