Iceland and Greenland Day 6 - Eqi Glacier

We woke up this morning and opened the window covering to see so much ice in Disko Bay. It seemed like the glacier was calving a lot last night because the amount of ice had increased significantly. We could see a large cruise ship in the distance, but it looked like it couldn’t come closer because Disko Bay was so full of ice. Later a tour operator confirmed that because of the ice the cruise ship couldn't anchor in the bay. 

After breakfast at our hotel, our tour operator, World of Greenland, picked us up and drove us to the dock. We boarded a small boat for our Eqi Glacier day trip. There were 11 other people on this tour with us, including the two tour operators, Nick and Nicholas. It was a ~2-hour boat ride to the Eqi Glacier. Much of it through icy water. Our boat navigated through the icy waters of the bay. We got some up-close views of icebergs. We also saw a couple of whales along the way, so it was a great boat ride. The ocean was also really smooth, it looked like glass. 

We stopped on our way out to visit an impressive waterfall. Nick jumped out of the ship and filled his water bottle from the waterfall so we could taste the pure glacier water. 

The closer we got to the Eqi Glacier the icier the water became. Eqi Glacier is one of the most active calving glaciers in the world, meaning that during the summer it is losing ice all of the time. With global warming, this phenomenon has reached concerning levels. There was a global new story making the rounds about the "unusually extensive" melting of the ice sheet around the time we were in Greenland.

As we approached the glacier we moved slowly through the icy water. The glacier loomed in front of us. It was massive reaching upwards of 200 meters high and measuring more than 3 kilometers across. Most of the group squeezed up toward the front of the boat. Alison and I decided to go to the back. By standing up on the seats we could see over the boat and had a pretty good view of the glacier. Then Nick invited us to sit on top of the boat. Here we had the best seats to view the glacier. 

We sat and watched the glacier for a couple of hours. We saw it calve a few times as we watched. The calving was interesting. You have to watch closely to catch them because you would see the ice fall and then a few moments later you would hear the crashing sound. If you waited to hear the sound you would be too late. The sound of the glacier calving is like thunder and is surprisingly loud. We would also sometimes hear thunder without seeing calving due to gas/pressure explosions inside the glacier or calving occurring underwater. 

You can see calving in the mid-left of this picture

This picture with the boat and a portion of the Eqi Glacier provides a sense of scale for the massive size of this glacier.

The Eqi glacier experience was incredible. It is hard to describe how massive this place was and how much ice there is at this glacier. Pictures cannot do it justice. On our boat, we had a news crew from Taiwan. They were traveling Greenland and doing a piece on climate change. They had a drone which they flew from the boat and very nearly lost. As it was low on battery and they were frantically scanning the sky, Alison and I felt for them - we had this type of experience when I was chasing whales with my drone in Hawaii. Fortunately, they were able to get it back to the boat just before the battery died. 

When our two hours at the glacier were up we spent another two hours riding back to Ilulissat. 

Once we arrived back at the hotel we freshened up and walked into town. On our way, we stopped by the boardwalk by our hotel to take a picture of the bay, since it is so much icier than yesterday. Then we went exploring around town. There is a nice old church down by the water. We also found a nice bench to sit and watch the ice swirling around the Bay. Once we had our fill of Ilulissat tonight we headed back to the hotel. We ate dinner at our hotel tonight and called it a night a little early.