Saturday, 8 September 2012
Nanortalik, Greenland

These two days in Greenland have been worth all the bumpy nights and worries about hurricanes hovering off in the near distance.  What a spectacular place to be privileged to have seen up close.

Yesterday’s sailing through the sounds and fjords of southern Greenland was a majestic reflection of the creative majesty of Nature in its most "sublime"—Wordsworth and Coleridge would have found a oneness with nature here, even at its most frightening heights and dizzying verticals.  The flowing glaciers and tall crags bring one closer to the spirit of self combined with whatever spirits lurk out beyond us. 

Today’s visit to Nanortalik demonstrates how a few hundred happy people celebrate this closeness on a daily basis.  Having a ship as large as the Eurodam drop anchor off the village square is quite an event for the natives.  You can’t blame them for trying to make a few dollars off the tourists (the lineup at the post office for stamps was especially long).  But on the whole they are a friendly and welcoming people, happy to share a wave and a smile, and to pose for the endless photographs we tourists insist on taking.

Backed up against the sheer gray granite of the mountains, the colorful native cottages create a mosaic of bright design.  In the bright sun and mild temperatures a walk through the whole village—and the surrounding suburbs--takes merely a pleasurable hour even at  a slow pace.

As the Eurodam departs from Greenland the captain tells us we will be missing another port--St Johns, Newfoundland, and taking an interior route between Labrador and Newfoundland Island, rather than heading south around the island.  We will head through the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Cabot Strait to try to reach Halifax without going through the center of the now-combine hurricanes Leslie and Michael.  We will spend an extra day in Halifax before heading down the coast to New York on Friday.