August 8^th, 2026

Ilulissat, Greenland

Last month Brian and I were watching YouTube videos about the ports we will be visiting. The first video that came up was one of a giant iceberg collapsing. We dismissed this as being AI generated, and moved on to the next video.

We should have watched the whole video. Indeed on July 25^th a giant iceberg did collapse at Ilulissat, Wow!

I must admit I had never heard of Ilulissat before. It is the iceberg capital of the world. The Ilulissat Icefjord contains the Jacobshavnisbrae, the most productive glacier in the Northern Hemisphere The glacier flows at a rate of 66–115 ft per day, which results in around 20 billion tonnes of icebergs calved off and passing out of the fjord every year. That’s a lot of icebergs. Not only are there a lot of them, some of them are HUGE. The problem is that the mouth of the fjord is very shallow due to the moraine, so the big guys get stuck there. Their only escape is by melting or being pushed forward by the buildup of icebergs behind them. The fjord is the largest supplier of icebergs in the northern hemisphere, and it is said that the iceberg that sank the Titanic came from here.

Sometimes there are so many icebergs that ships cannot get close to the town, but we were in luck. Our captain and ice pilot were able to carefully steer us between the ice and deliver us safely to Ilulissat. Quite a feat.

When we woke up this morning there was a small iceberg right outside our cabin.

And there were several more dotted around between us and the town.

We had booked a boat tour of the icefjord and the 12 passenger sight seeing boats were able to pick us up right from the ship. Bundled up in our new parkers we climbed on board and made our way through the icefield to get a closer look at the icebergs.

They were nothing short of spectacular, towering above us. It was incredible. Our little boat moved through the ice so we could get a really good look at these monsters.

With the recent tipping over of the iceberg I asked our guide should we be worried, but she reassured us that the icebergs were sitting on the bottom of the fjord and very stable. Good.

We heard a loud noise, louder than thunder coming from nearby. We thought we may get to see a bit breaking off one of the icebergs, but all of the giant icebergs around us remained calm and not intending to break apart any time soon.

Our guide was great, and we learnt a lot about icebergs and their significance to nature.

Even the smaller ones were beautiful.

All too soon it was time to head back to the ship, carefully making our way through the ice. It had been an incredible tour.

There were 3 boats on the ship’s tour, and on returning to the ship we found out that the first boat saw the iceberg that made that loud sound. Folks who were on board showed us a video of the iceberg slowly breaking apart, until there was nothing left of it. How lucky were they to have seen this! Still, what we saw was wonderful, I have no regrets.

We were relaxing in our cabin in the afternoon when the officer of the watch announced that there were humpback whales close to the ship.

We looked over our balcony, and sure enough, there they were.

They were joined by other whales, and we spent the rest of the afternoon being treated to watching whales all around us. I have never seen so many whales so close to us.

They were even waving.

And, they showed off  their flukes.

The most exciting moment was when I was out on the balcony and a whale came close by and suddenly breached right in front of me. Brian was inside getting his camera so he missed watching it unfortunately.

One thing we learned from the visiting whales was the need to keep our puffy jackets readily available so we could dash outside every time there is a wildlife sighting and not have to rummage through the closet for them. We also need to keep our cameras at the ready. You never know when a whale might breach.

We had a totally magical afternoon looking at all of the whales, and watching the icebergs float by,

The whales eventually lost interest in us, and moved on. I was happy that they would be far away from us when we started up our engines.

Later, when the whales were long gone, we went to the Constellation lounge to watch our sail away. It was amazing to observe us as we gently made our way between the huge icebergs, and out into the open waters. All while drinking champagne and listening to Charlie on the guitar.

We were still sailing through icebergs as we sat having another delicious dinner in the restaurant,

but as it gradually grew darker and midnight approached there were no more icebergs in sight.

Time to get some sleep.