Last night was an absolute blast! It was an Arctic barbecue on the deck, followed by dancing.

This may have happened…

… followed shortly after by this:

It’s amazing what some fun tracks and mulled wine will do.

The morning was dull, with light rain. I chose to do the short hike again, which is basically code for “stick within the perimeter and go wherever you want.”

This suits me very well. I can enjoy the colour of the seaweed at my leisure.

This landing spot had a house and shed on it. The house was built in 1946 by a Dutch man with a wife from Greenland. They were intending to live here, but the story goes that after a year, she felt too lonely so they moved to a town.

He did a good job as it’s still standing. See the little greenhouse at the front? I could feel the plans they had from that thing alone. Hunters and trappers use the house now.

In such a rocky landscape, there are so many little pictures. It was still raining, but there was little wind. A small group climbed to the top of a rocky outcrop, where there was a cairn.

One of the guides told us about Svalbard, the place where you can never die. You are literally not allowed to be buried there.

Back in the day, when whalers died, the red of them would dig a grave and bury them. But winters are very cold, so as the ground contracted, the coffins were pushed up to the surface, with the very well preserved corpses still in them! Yikes.

Zoom in on the hiker in the pale blue jacket in the bottom right of the photo. This will give you an idea of how high the cliffs are.

The shed. It’s pretty much gutted on the inside. I can understand why the wife wanted some company. It would be pretty bleak to have to live here all the time.

Look! Wildlife! So far the long hikers have seen a lemming and an arctic hare. Clearly, you don’t come to Greenland for the wildlife pictures.

But then something very exciting happened. I was waiting on the beach for a zodiac pickup, having just missed one by the skin of my teeth. As I was waiting, I sat on a rocky outcrop and was staring out to sea.

Suddenly, I heard a roar of thunder. As I watched, a whole section of this massive iceberg broke off and fell into the sea. I think I was the only one who was looking in the right direction.

I was absolutely thrilled. This is the third time I’ve seen this. Once in Antarctica, once in Alaska and now here in Greenland.

Juan, one of the guides, said that he saw this iceberg last season. It’s anchored to the bottom of the sea, and “Do you see the height of it on the left? It’s twice the length of that, under the water. I saw it when I was on the cliff.”

You can see that it’s much bigger than our ship.

I went for a nap after lunch , and boy, was it a good one! I was so comfy and relaxed that I didn’t want to move, so the announcement that the wind had picked up and that activities on shore were cancelled was very good news for me! I rolled over and grabbed another hour of snooze time.

Natalie came back and said, “ You’re not missing out on anything, unless you want to hear lots of people speaking Mandarin very loudly!”

At least half the passengers are a contingent from Taiwan. I wish they spoke English because I want to go to Taiwan next year and it would be good to get some ideas.

We had a very interesting lecture about the Inuit culture.

 No roads in Greenland.

They use sleighs and snowmobiles. The ferry only operates from April to December, and only from the west, where most of the cities are. There are small planes and helicopters as well.

We’ve been asked not to shop in the supermarket at the town we’re visiting, because we’ll be taking food from them. We’re on the east side, which is very sparsely populated.

Pragmatic. If animals were scarce and the communities were hungry, they’d sacrifice the baby girls and the old people. The old people would quietly walk away and freeze to death once they were no longer useful.

This was interesting. The hunters used to catch a seal, carefully gut it while keeping the skin intact, and then inflate it. They’d attach this ‘balloon’ to a harpoon, which would keep a wounded seal or whale from getting away from them because it couldn’t dive.

Women would sometimes leave their husbands to live for a time in another community, have babies, then come back home. This stopped inbreeding. The church from Denmark wasn’t happy about this, but it was a very practical way to keep genetic diversity in such a small population.

If you did something wrong, you would be asked to leave. This would mean death. This happens in Australia, too.

This iceberg was HUGE. Easily the biggest we’ve yet seen. The ship had to change course to get around it.

 No roads in Greenland.

They use sleighs and snowmobiles. The ferry only operates from April to December, and only from the west, where most of the cities are.

We’ve been asked not to shop in the supermarket at the town we’re visiting, because we’ll be taking food from them. We’re on the east side, which is very sparsely populated.

Pragmatic. If animals were scarce and the communities were hungry, they’d sacrifice the baby girls and the old people.

Women would sometimes leave their husbands to live for a time in another community, have babies, then come back home. This stopped inbreeding.

If you did something wrong, you would be asked to leave. This would mean death.

Dad joke of the day: