Voyage North - a photo essay: (13) entering Kangerlussuaq Fjord

This next sequence comes from what perhaps the most dramatic time, for me, of the whole trip. We were sailing south along the West Greenland coast after leaving Sisimuit; we were going to enter Kangerlussuaq Fjord and traverse it overnight, arriving at Kangerlussuaq settlement (a former US air base) the following morning. It's a large fjord - both long and wide - and we were far enough north that the ship's navigation information, instead of giving sunrise and sunset times, listed 'polar day' and 'polar night' - ie: 24-hour daylight. I was booked on an excursion leaving early the next day, so at 11pm I was about to go to bed, but thought I would first check the ship's navigation channel on the cabin TV, to see where we were. The course information told me that we had already turned west from the open sea into the fjord and the CCTV link from the front of the ship showed something interesting-looking, and people out on deck. So I pulled my warm clothes on, on top of my pyjamas, picked up my camera, and went out on deck. At the side of the ship was this view:

Ahead of the ship, heading up the fjord, was this:

All around were spectacular views, changing by the minute as the sun went down behind the mountain, as the temperature changed, as the rivers of cloud poured out between the peaks, as the low light rays illuminated the peaks and glaciers behind us with bright red tinges. I ended up staying up all night because I couldn't bear to go inside and ignore it all. I took hundreds of photos, and even after drastic pruning, I till have over 50 . . . selecting which to post here has been exceptionally difficult. I was an extraordinary night, perishing cold . . . about a dozen of us stayed there all night.

At this latitude, at this time of year, the sun appears above the mountains at roughly NNE and falls below the mountain-tops at roughly NNW, so in sailing up the fjord we were heading towards the action the whole time.

As the sun fell below the mountains the temperature changed rapidly, and there was a cold downdraught from the icecap, causing fluctuating cloud:

As the cloud cleared a little, I turned to look behind us, away from the sun:

Later in the night we reached the minimum light level:

After hours out on deck, getting thoroughly chilled through, with occasional brief forays inside for hot drinks, I started to think that I would have to make a decision about when to stop, when to go inside and get warm, when to sleep, since I really did have to be off the ship early in the morning . . . it was starting to get lighter again, the sun was moving upwards behind the mountain and at some point would appear over the mountain peaks . . . at that point, I decided, I would go inside. By then I would be trying to shoot directly into the sun, which wasn't a good idea. That occurred at 3.30am, it took me until 4am to get warm, and then I slept until 6.30am.