Leaving Eqi Glacier and back to Ilulissat

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Today we had to leave Eqi Glacier camp. The boat does a round trip: it picks up people in Ilulissat and brings them here, spends about 1-2 hours viewing the glacier calving, then comes to the dock to drop people off at Eqi Glacier camp. The people that are leaving Eqi Glacier Camp get on board and travel back to Ilulissat. Our pickup time was approximately 3 p.m. The boat also supplies the staff there with food, beer, wine, soda, alcohol, and whatever else they need to run the place.

I talked to one of the staff today and he said they arrived May 21 to do some work on the place, and the first visitors were June 21. They continue to get guests till early September, then they winterize the place and leave. He said it can snow in September, but winter starts for sure in October. It's sorta autumn here now, the tundra plants have autumn colors, and the nights are crisp.

After breakfast, checking out & paying for my drinks, I went to the lake, a 15 minute walk from the lodge. I was hoping to see an arctic fox. There was one hanging around the lodge but I missed it. Jan got some pictures of it. I didn't see any animals so I took pictures of the tundra plants, then found a place to watch the glacier calving. I've been hoping to see a big one, but it was more of the same chunks falling off.

Unloading and loading the boat is interesting because they watch the glacier just in case a big piece comes off and a tsunami spreads across the bay. It can be quite dangerous so the staff is very specific about how this happens. We had no problems and were on our way. Most of the students also left today. I think we were fortunate to get the lecture from them last night.

Of course I took a zillion photos of the icebergs. I was waiting for one to flip over, but no such luck. We were back in Ilulissat at 1830 and back to the hotel, where we had dinner and got ready for tomorrow.

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Photos

That's our boat
Remember how small it looked in front of the glacier?