We now have two days sailing across the Greenland Sea on Le Boreal, to reach the east coast of Greenland. Conditions during the voyage have been amazingly calm, and the Greenland Sea is no exception. The first day is grey and overcast, with patches of clear sky, however mid-afternoon on the second day the fog clears from the Greenland Sea as if by magic, and we can see the approaching pack ice off the east coast of Greenland. The sea is still calm, and Le Boreal cuts through the water without barely a sound from the engines.
We had hoped to make a landing this evening, but the pack ice here is multi-year and therefore thicker and more dangerous that what we encountered above the 80th parallel, so we are delayed by about 5 hours, and the landing is cancelled.
There is surprisingly little wildlife encountered along the way – a few kittywakes and fulmars, but no sightings of whales or the pelagic birds that would normally follow the ship on an Antarctic expedition. The pack ice is beautiful, but strangely deserted. It’s a good day to catch up on editing photos, writing blog entries, and generally preparing for the days ahead in Greenland.
