Voyage North - a photo essay: (1) introduction and setting sail

This is the first in a series of posts that I have called a 'photo essay' - rather than just posting photos with captions only and no comment - for three reasons. First, there are stories to be told about this trip; second, at times the practical arrangements and light conditions have resulted in photos of a lower technical quality than I would otherwise post here; third, the 'essay' component will bring in photos that would not have sufficient visual interest without the accompanying story.

The trip was three weeks long, starting from and returning to Tilbury, UK, with the goal of visiting Greenland:

We sailed from Tilbury in the afternoon and enjoyed a photogenic sunset over the North Sea on our first evening:

And so, a note about the camera I was using. Many people on board had driven from home to the port, and were parking the car there for three weeks, making it easy for them to bring large amounts of luggage, including big cameras! I went to the port by train, having to handle for myself everything I wanted to take. Consequently, I 'packed smart' into one medium suitcase and didn't take my large, heavy camera and lenses. So all the images in this series were taken with a small-sensor compact camera, with a good zoom but less than ideal resolution at long distance and in poor light. Probably I should have found a way of carrying the other camera!