Sunday 25 August 2019

August 5-17 II Greenland the place for icebergs

Greenland is the place to visit if you want to see icebergs, serious and interesting icebergs. Mountainous chunks the size of apartment blocks, obelisks, huge jutting convoluted towers, vast shelves, some are dotted with small ice boulders, chunks and weird bits all evidence of the rolling, colliding and breaking of larger structures. 
Talking of ice! It was in one of the fjords in fact the Nordvest Fjord that Lindsay and I took the plunge and lept into the freezing water. Well it wasn’t quite freezing but close - 1 degree C! Crazy? You bet! We’re now officially members of the Society of Arctic Plungers. Will we do it again in Antarctica? Hopefully we’ll get the chance - we’re venturing south in February with Heritage Expeditions!

Size perspective- that’s a zodiac in front of that berg



A close up of the colours that draw you closer to look.

the juxtaposition of this gorgeous iceberg and the starkly beautiful, coloured mountain of ancient of rock blew me away.

This berg shows lots of moraine, probably lateral, embedded.

An amphitheater we didn’t dare to explore.



This beautiful berg is almost entirely clear. That’s quite a phenomenon. It means no air bubbles simply compacted ice. The colours and light through this beautiful thing were amazing.

A tiny part of the larger iceberg showing whole and pulverised rocks embedded. The dark bits melt first creating some of the weird shapes we saw.

How on earth did this form!?

The aqua marine stripes are highly compressed ice. These form as the glacier firms and represents times when there was considerable compression. We went very close in an attempt to collect some of the melt water plunging down the face of the berg (centre frame).

Most of the icebergs had waterfalls of ice melt. all shined like alabaster, polished glass - so beautiful.

Guess who?! I was going to take the plunge. Not to be outdone Lindsay went in with me! He dressed up in his thermals and bathers and I added swimming goggles to my outfit. We looked hilarious but we had fun.

It was exhilarating!!

This says it all!

We collected a piece of iceberg for our G and T.

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