Sunday 9th August - Scoresby Sund, Greenland

We woke very early to see that we had reached the south end of Scoresby Sund some time before and had then turned due North. I went up to the the Observation Lounge to see a large area of pack ice between us and where the land was hidden by low cloud.

Pack ice off Scoresby Sund, 15 miles from Greenland

Shortly after I went back to the cabin, there was an announcement that a mother polar bear and two cubs had been sighted. There was a mad rush to get upstairs, just in time to film them swimming away. Some passengers had very good close-up photos of them on an ice floe. Not long after, another bear was seen, but it was too far away for me to locate it.

I saw Ingrid and Gary in the Observation Lounge and they had some absolutely stunning photos of the bears, which they kindly forwarded to me and, later on, they agreed I could post them on this blog. So here is a great big thank you to them for capturing the magical moments of the bears swimming to the ice floe, climbing up on to it, looking at the ship and then swimming away. It was all over in a few minutes.

And, here are two stills I took from the short piece of video I shot as the bears were swimming away from us. Not 'quite' as good as Ingrid's and Gary's but at least I can say they were taken by me!

As we went for breakfast, they announced a briefing at 10am to let us know what we will be doing. We are trying to be positive but it is looking more and more likely we are not going to be able to get into Scoresby Sund today.

As it turned out, my worst fears were realised. Kit announced that, because of a combination of ice and a worsening weather forecast, all four days here have been abandoned and we are now sailing to Grimsey Island off the North Coast of Iceland.

What a disaster! The whole purpose of this trip for us was to see Scoresby Sund. I wonder if we will ever see it now?

We took a few more photos, including brief glimpses of the land through the broken clouds as we sailed south and away from Scoresby Sund and Greenland.

Greenland through the gloom

More Greenland!!

We listened to John Fonseca's lecture on his support work at the South Pole and in Greenland. It was a good informative talk.

We went to the lounge for coffee where we sat with Rick and Jenny from Johannesburg and Peter and Jackie. We are all extremely disappointed to miss out on Greenland. We have been there before and particularly wanted to see Scoresby Sund, but most of the passengers have never visited Greenland at all, so the atmosphere on board was quite negative. We tried to cheer ourselves up and talked about the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights in Iceland. Rick did a Google search and discovered that tonight is a good night for the Aurora. I hope so!

We had lunch with Lori and Gordon from New York and then a lazy afternoon which included tea with Darian from Brisbane. He is a very nice man.

At 7pm we had a briefing for tomorrow and the next three days on the north coast of Iceland. We go ashore in Group 4 at 8am. It's early because the weather is forecast to change for the worse.

Dinner was with Pauline and Jan and Ernie and Heidi. Another very enjoyable meal with everyone agreeing the food has been first class.

The day ended with the Liars' Club in the Panorama Lounge. It was very amusing. The four contestants were Luke, Will, Bruno and Danny. Luke won first place. A convincing liar! Is that want we want from one of our lecturers?