After a slightly more leisurely morning (we’re really tired), we boarded the special operations boat for a tour around the island of Uummanaq. This location is marked with its pinnacle mountain peak with the diagonal strike across the middle and brightly colored houses all around. It’s quite striking, like living below a great and all powerful king’s castle. Our special operations boat went at full tilt for our ride around the island— we could have taken turns waterskiing behind the ship! I was busy holding onto my two hats while trying to pull up the waterproof hood on my ultra thick jacket. The wind chill factor of the boat ride lowered the 39 degree temperature to about 25. Wow. But we saw it all in record time and John took great photos!

Back on board, we barely had time to sit down and breathe in before it was time to load on life jackets again and head for shore, this time to walk around the island! Our first stop was the dog sled tour. There, a delightful local man, told us what it was like in winter. The ice freezes over the whole enormous bay. Man and dogs and sled can ride on it, cars can even drive on it. For as far we could see, all will be ice in just a few months, wow. 

We took pictures of icebergs, but tried not to include the piles of trash that are hard to manage in small areas like this. Down the hill and around the corner, to the middle of town, we found the Lutheran church (all churches here are Lutheran), which was perfectly adorned with chandeliers, a pulpit and a Danish ship (Maybe of Hans Legede, missionary) hanging from the ceiling. 

Just outside the church and to the right was a giant mailbox that read “Santa’s Mail.” The legend is that the thatched roof building is Santa’s summer home, but he’s vacationing right now in the Bahamas. From there, we stopped at tables where local women were selling delightful handmade crafts. I have a pocketful of Danish kroner from the ATM yesterday, but sadly, John would not let me buy seal skin gloves. Apparently, I’d get thrown in jail and will embarrass the family for buying them. So, there they stay. Beautiful though!

From there, we went into the local grocery story. It was actually okay though without fresh fruits and vegetables, there were lots of canned options of everything. Back up. When we’re talking to the dog sleds guy, I asked if there was a restaurant in town that might serve seal meat and blubber since I really want to try both. He said no way, this time of year. Darn. And the only seal meat in the store was canned dog food. ☹️

So we wandered down the dirt road/Main Street past the harbor full of small fishing boats to the dock and on to a zodiac, and back to the boat.While chatting at the dock, we met a woman who had been on the Polaris when the rogue wave hit and did major damage to the ship while also killing one passenger. More omen that story another time.

Back aboard, I went swimming and went to the iPhone talk. (I can now make people disappear from photo, so watch out…ooo.ooo), to dinner and then to pt2 of the show of the Norseman talk, then to the very cool room in the bow called “The Hide” for storytelling from a Danish crew enter who has spent a lot of time in the wilderness of East Greenland—oooo. Great show! But bigger surprises tomorrow. Night night.