A short charter flight from Keflavik, Iceland yesterday afternoon brought us to Greenland’s international airport in Kangerlussuaq, a small town at the head of the “big fjord” with the same name. Here you can drive east to the interior ice sheet, but we headed west, a few miles down the fjord to board our expedition home for the next two weeks, National Geographic Explorer. The evening was spent getting settled and oriented to the vessel, eating a sumptuous supper, and enjoying a few moments by relaxing with a beverage as we made our way out of the fjord and towards our morning destination.
We jumped right into exploration mode in the morning. National Geographic Explorer was anchored in Amerloq, a small bay right on the Arctic Circle, where neither the vessel nor any one on board had previously visited. In the afternoon, we arrived in Sisimiut, just north of the Arctic Circle and the second largest community in Greenland with more than 5,000 inhabitants. We enjoyed a variety of walks and a tasting of traditional Greenlandic foods.
