July 15 – Prince Christian Sound and Aappliattoq

We were up extremely early today to be out on deck when we sailed into Prince Christian Sound at 6:00am.  The sound is very narrow in places and rather long and extremely beautiful.  The mountains are craggy

and there are waterfalls at fairly regular intervals along the mountain sides.

There are a number of glaciers that flow into the sound,

resulting in stretches of water with lots of ice as well as a few very large icebergs.

One of the icebergs had a waterfall flowing off the top of it.

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Watch a video of the waterfall.
***************************************** And one had a seal sunbathing on top.

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More Prince Christian Sound Photos
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In the afternoon we arrived at the small village of Aappliattoq, population of around 100 people.  The little village is a gold mine of photo opportunities with a pretty little harbor,

colorful buildings,

and a colorful church

with a cemetery next door.

The mountains and fjord around the village are exceptionally beautiful.

And there were lots and lots of flowers including alpine chickweed

Alpine Chickweed

 dandelions (both yellow and fuzzy),

Dandelions

arctic cottongrass,

sea mayweed (the flower looks like daisies but the foliage is quite different),

Sea Mayweed

and dwarf fireweed or Little Girl.

Dwarf Fireweed

The few people we met were friendly.  Turns out half of the village went out to the boat for a visit.  The children particularly loved riding the elevators and eating ice cream.

There were no tours of the village as there isn’t really much there but Hurtigruten did arrange for a concert by a small group from the local church.  They stood on the steps of the church and sang four songs, possibly in Inuit as the language didn’t sound like anything we had heard before.

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More Aappliattoq Photos

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Late in the evening we headed up to the decks to watch the setting sun play on the icebergs…it was really beautiful. 

Mary stayed out a good bit longer in the hopes of a good sunset…everything looked like it could result in a great sunset but the wait was forever (since the days are long and it takes a very long time for the sun to set).  But the wait paid off big time with a spectacular pink/purple sunset.