Voyage of the Vikings Redux – Qaqartoq, Greenland

Cruise Day 29

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Today we are looking forward to revisiting Qaqartoq, Greenland.  We had really enjoyed it back in 2016.  It has grown quite a bit since our last visit and while it was unique to have a cruise ship stop there in 2016, that is no longer the case and in fact, there will be two cruise ships in Qaqartoq today.  Besides us, there will be a Princess ship that has more passengers than we have so there will be over 4,000 cruise ship passengers descending on this little town of 3,000 today.

The location of Qaqartoq (red marker) compared to the other two ports we have visited in Greenland this trip.  Paamiut is the marker in the upper left hand corner while Nanortalik is the marker just below Qaqartoq.

 

The Qaqartoq area

I added this full map of Greenland to show you just how big it is, especially compared to Iceland.  Despite its large size, the total population of Greenland is just under 57,000.  The interior is completely covered by ice and all the inhabitants live in mostly small coastal towns.  Greenland is also the largest island (non-continent) in the world.

I got up around six and looked out the window and saw nothing but fog and went back to bed.  I got up again at eight and we were at anchor (it’s a tender port) and we couldn’t even see the town from the ship that wasn’t too far away.  I went back to bed again until we got up at nine.  It was still pretty foggy, and we could barely see land so we decided to hold off on going to shore and see what would happen. 

It was so foggy we could barely see the town and we weren't anchored that far away.

While we were waiting for the fog to clear, this Greenland Coast Guard (I'm not sure what they call it in Greenland) ship pulled into the harbor.  I guess they were doing some sort of drill because, much to our surprise, a helicopter flew out of the fog and landed on the ship.  It was a little scary as we weren't sure how they could even find the ship in the fog, but I'm sure they must do it all the time.

Around eleven, the fog looked like it might be starting to burn off, so Val and I got ready and headed for the tenders.  It was a very short tender ride to the dock and when we arrived, we found the town teeming with people.  Our tender dock for this visit was in a different spot so we headed off towards the center of town.  It was pretty much as we remembered it, but there were some new buildings and shops.

We were anchored very close to the town, but not as close as it looks in this picture.  Our ship is in the foreground, while the Princess ship is behind us.

A tender arrives bringing more people, ...

while another leaves on its way back to the ship.

As we walked on, we saw that the Princess ship was tendering into the spot where we did last time, but I don’t know what spot might be better.  We wandered around visiting a couple of shops, but the large crowds really diminished the charm of this small town for us.  There were literally people everywhere and it actually felt crowded, especially in the shops we visited.

The town was teeming with people, and almost all of them were from the two ships.  This may not look like what you would call a large crowd, but for a town of this size, it seemed very crowded to us and took away from the charm we had enjoyed on our first visit.

The fog had cleared in town, but it still lingered out on the water.

Here's a look at how the tenders load and unload at the ship.  You go down to below the passenger decks to the crew deck and then go down some stairs to the tender platform where you can board the tender.  It is usually quite easy, but at times the seas get a bit rough and you have to time your step onto the tender just right.  There are always crew members to assist so it is not really bad, and if it is too rough, they will cancel or suspend tendering.

Except for both of us being in it, we took this same picture back in 2016.  We didn't have to wait for the crowds to clear back then.

As we had guessed, the fog burnt off and it turned into a beautiful day.  We continued to wander around and explore a bit more, but decided we’d had enough and wandered back to the tender dock.  There was a bit of a line, but there was room for two tenders at the dock, so we were quickly loaded, and on our way back to the ship.

Time to catch the tender and head back to the ship.

We were back in our room just after one so after getting cleaned up, we headed off to lunch.  After lunch I walked around the ship and took pictures since the day had turned so nice and clear.  It had been quite cool in the morning, and we had bundled up to go ashore, but as the sun came out, it became quite nice and that continued through the afternoon as long as you were out of the wind and in the sun.

Later in the afternoon we noticed a lot of smoke in the sky and at first, we thought it was from the ship, but it turned out that the local landfill was on fire sending a large, dense plume of smoke into the air.

At first we thought the smoke was coming from the stacks on our ship, but it turned out it was coming from a fire in the local landfill that was behind us.

The all aboard was 4:30 PM and we were on our way by five.  It was a beautiful sail out of Qaqartoq, as we headed out to sea.  We got a view of the fire and it looked pretty large.  There was a helicopter dumping water on it, but it didn’t look like it was making much headway.  The landfill was out of town so there didn’t appear to be any danger, but the smoke really stood out in this pristine area.

Time to bring in the anchor and head to open seas.  The Princess ship would be leaving as soon as we were on our way.

One last look at Qaqartoq

Now we could see where the smoke was coming from.

A closer look.

A helicopter is dumping its water on the fire.

We began to see quite a few icebergs as we left with some of them being quite large.  It got pretty cool out on the balcony, so we looked out through our windows and when we saw something interesting, one of us would rush out and take some pictures.  We ended up with a lot of iceberg pictures.

 

It was dinner and the casino as usual and Val had another nice win tonight, but it was an otherwise uneventful evening.  Tonight, we set the clock back 30 minutes for that strange Newfoundland time zone, so we’ll get a little extra sleep tonight.