Saturday, August 29th, 2026

As is, so often, the way, with no noteworthy partial eclipse happening, the moon decided to show itself in its full glory.

As did, yet another glorious dawn.

When we woke up properly, it was to another smooth morning – a benefit of still being within the Scoresby Sund. The Plancius was under way, but was restricted to five knots because of the Narwhals and our progress was detectable only by looking out of the widow and seeing the scenery move. It was almost impossibly calm, impossibly serene and impossibly beautiful.

With a slightly later start to the landing, breakfast was also served later. It is amazing just how long that half an hour can be when you think you are hungry…

Ittoqqortoomiit

While we ate, I will not bore you with the menu, the Captain dropped anchor a few hundred metres offshore from the small town of Ittoqqortoomiit. From a distance, the little wooden houses, painted in a variety of shades, looked quite cute.

Originally, the colour of each building was related to its function so that, in the snow and darkness of the depths of the Arctic Winter, it was easier to tell if you had found the place that you were looking for. This process was apparently, almost mandatory at first, but is no longer enforced.

Lucie loves her garden. I piqued her interest by saying “Look, a greenhouse” – of course, what I really meant was “Look, a house that is green”. The nearer inshore we got, the shabbier the houses became and, apart from the church and a few of what were obviously municipal or industrial structures, the town looked very run down. A few vehicles were moving, but these were almost exclusively quad-bikes. There were a few big, American pickups and some really hefty cabin-cruisers that had somehow been dragged up the hill to a place that would not ice over in Winter.

Presumably to prevent a sneak attack by swimming Polar Bears, a couple of Zodiacs patrolled behind the Plancius.

On the shore, a sign warned of the danger FROM “active” Polar Bears. Personally, I would not be all that keen to encounter even a “passive” one in the street.
Considering that the inhabitants actively hunt the bears, a sign warning the bears against the dangers from gun-toting residents should, really, be placed, facing outwards, at the edge of town.

It was already warm and sunny, so although waterproofs were still de-rigueur for the landing, I stayed in my short-sleeved tee shirt and left my hat in the cabin. Once on dry land, we both removed our waterproof leggings and Lucie kindly carried them around. The roads, if that is not too grandiose a description, were mainly made of concrete slabs, with side streets being gravel tracks. Some slabs had dog tracks in the surface.

We followed a road around the bay and up the hill to the helipad in order to get a good view. A view it certainly was, but good might be aggrandising it. Regrettably, Ittoqqortoomiit is a sad and sorry place.

At least the bay, on the other side of the hill, was beautiful.

Halfway up the slope, the land had been levelled and there was a beautiful, luminous green, astroturf football pitch. It looked so totally out of place and the grandstand had only thirty-three seats. I cannot imagine who ever comes to play there. There certainly cannot be any “local derbies” as there is nowhere local – it would take days to get anywhere and with a population of only 329, Ittoqqortoomiit could not possibly support two teams.

There were balls on the pitch and I could not resist popping a couple of goals in myself on the remotest football field that I will probably ever see.

There was a tiny souvenir shop, but it contained nothing we felt we simply had to have. There was a Musk Ox hide, not for sale, but as a source of material for the wool the girl behind the counter was spinning. The coarse looking hair was actually incredibly soft.

In Ittoqqortoomiit, the “big event” of the day is the launching of the weather balloon each morning at 11:00. A few minutes before lift-off time, we stationed ourselves in a good spot with a lot of “Koen inspired” photogenic plusses to catch the moment.

The time for launch came. So did 11:05, 11:10 and 11:15. We could see the balloon, still tightly tethered to Terra-firma, but did it rise so much as a millimetre ? No, it did not. In the end we gave up and walked back towards the Zodiacs. It was a Saturday morning at the end of the month and the day before had been Pay Day for all those residents not engaged in seasonal hunting expeditions. The previous evening had, therefore, been a massive drunken party – and nobody working in the museum, the shop or, apparently the weather station, could be bothered to get up. Not only that, but they do not really care about tourists or, seemingly, anything else.

As we walked downhill, in a circular route back towards the harbour, we noticed a passenger from the Plancius, behaving a little bit strangely behind the Police station.

He had spotted an Arctic Hare that was very close to a lot of people that would happily have eaten it !

The remote town is generally frozen in and totally isolated for around eight months of the year. In the short Summer, two ships arrive bringing supplies and we were forbidden to buy stuff in the supermarket (which was closed anyway for the reasons above) because that would have been depriving the residents. There are a lot of suicides in Ittoqqortoomiit, up to 50% of young men under 26. To prevent there being two more, in a slightly more advanced years category, we grabbed a Zodiac back out to the Plancius.

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At lunch we were lucky enough to sit with Koen and one of the guides, Charlotte. She is the one that first grounded her Zodiac, the day before. As she still has access to firearms, I was careful not to mention that. She is a young wife, from Winchester in the UK, who spends several months a year gadding about on boats while her husband stays at home. Koen, of course, was his normal self. He has such infectious enthusiasm that he is able to communicate and a great way of making stuff interesting. I told him, truthfully, that his talk about whales, that he gave on our Antarctic trip had almost made me cry. For a moment, I thought he might burst into tears too !

After lunch, Koen was due to give a talk about Polar Bears, but this was delayed by the appearance of two Orcas around the ship. How bad does this sound? Because we had seen dozens, if not scores, of Orcas in the Antarctic, I did not feel an urge to rush out on deck. It did appear though that an Orca sighting so far to the North (73 degrees) was quite a rarity.

Koen’s delayed talk about Polar Bears was as witty and informative as we were expecting. The most amazing things are their size (three metres plus), the distance they can walk in a day (30 kilometres) and, most frighteningly, the fact that a Polar Bear is faster over 100 metres than ….. an Olympic Gold Medallist !

We had now left the Sund and were sailing up the East coast of Greenland. We turned into the next big bay and there was an Oceanwide sailing ship, the Rembrandt van Rijn.

The Plancius was carrying provisions to replenish those on the Rembrandt.

Captain Christophe skilfully pulled along side and the passengers were treated to a view of the loading procedure. It was not simple, buffers had to be correctly placed between the two hulls (the Plancius dwarfed its smaller sister), lines were thrown, anchors were dropped and bags of provisions exchanged (we got some crates of wine back). The seldom seen crew scurried around, they all knew what to do – and they did it. The guy controlling the crane played it like video game and the whole, slightly risky, procedure passed off smoothly.

Then, with a blast of its horn, the Plancius continued on its way and again turned North along the coast.

Next up was the recap and, more importantly, the Plan A for tomorrow. A hike, with the possibility of an “Arctic Plunge” at the end was planned, followed by another hike in the early evening. I sort of wanted to do the plunge – but I would have to see.

Then there was a talk by Michelle, about the National plant of Greenland, the Dwarf Fireweed, but I covered that yesterday.

Then it was Koen, yet again, with a history of his friendship with a hunter from Ittoqqortoomiit, illustrated by photographs. It was short, slightly poignant because, although he loves animals, Koen is a realist and, of course, interesting.

Outside of our window, we had a Port side cabin, I could see the coast of Greenland backlit by the rays of the setting sun. Its softened lines hiding the harshness hiding behind it.

The next day we would have an early start, with breakfast at 07:00, so it was time for dreamland.