Day 5: Nuuk to Sisimiut

We were woken up this morning at 06.30 by a very loud ferry announcement, informing us that in half an hour's time the ferry would be arriving in Maniitsoq. Sure enough, when we looked out the window we found that there was some land just coming into view. The picture is blurry because I took it through our cabin window!

Breakfast on the ferry is served at 07.00, so we got dressed and went to investigate it. It turned out to be rather chaotic, with half the boat having turned up at the same time and pushing and shoving to get into the queue. But the food itself was fine; for the breakfast included in our ticket, we were allowed to take one roll, one slice of normal bread, one slice of rye bread (which we both passed on!) as well as help ourselves to some cheese and various cold meats (which we also passed on - they didn't look very appetising). Most importantly, there was also coffee!

The sea around Maniitsoq seemed really calm and so walking around with trays of food wasn't a problem. It stayed calm as we left Maniitsoq behind and began to sail towards the ferry's next destination of Kangaamiut, which was good because it gave us an opportunity to try out the shower in our cabin in fairly stable conditions   We also went up onto the outside deck for a while to admire the views.

We sailed past some very impressive mountains.

Look at all the snow on them!

At times it felt a bit like we were somehow sailing past the Alps  

Around 11am we noticed that we could see some rocks outside our cabin window.

We realised the ferry had reached its next destination, Kangaamiut.

Kangaamiut is only a small place; Wikipedia reckons it has a population of just 293 people!

The harbour isn't big enough for the ferry to get right up to the town, so anyone wanting to join or leave the boat here has to be transferred in a smaller boat.

After Kangaamiut the ferry didn't have any stops for several hours. We went to the onboard cafe at midday to investigate lunch and were pleasantly surprised to find that we were able to eat some of it. I was worried that everything was going to involve fish, but today's lunch was rice with some sort of meatballs in what tasted like a chicken korma sauce. The overall effect was distinctly odd, but at least it wasn't fishy.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, the captain made an announcement over the tannoy to say that we were about to cross the Arctic Circle. How exciting! I went up on deck again to see whether there was anything to see but we were quite far out to sea at this point and I could only just make out the coast of Greenland in the distance.

Dinner on the ferry was surprisingly edible too; I ended up with beef as a main course and lemon mousse as a pudding. We ate it swiftly because we knew the ferry was going to arrive in Sisimiut at 19.00 and this was due to be a two-hour stop, so long enough for us to get off the boat and do some exploring.

Sure enough, by around 18.30 Sisimiut came into view on the horizon.

Sisimiut is the second largest city in Greenland, despite the fact that it has a population of less than 6 000 people  

There were tonnes of people getting off the boat here, so we had to queue up and wait our turn as the locals unloaded vast quantities of luggage. Like Nuuk, Sisimiut seemed quite hilly and so once we did get off the boat we had to start walking uphill almost immediately.

As we walked we got some good views of Sisimiut's church.

The church itself was perched on top of a hill, then there were rows of houses perched on rocky outcrops above that.

You wouldn't want to have vertigo if you lived up there!!

We walked a bit further through the town and found the local football pitch, complete with artificial grass and snowy mountains behind.

There were loads more mountains further into the distance, as we found when we walked to a coastal viewpoint.

We also caught sight of a small lake on the edge of town.

As we walked towards it, I was surprised(/concerned!) to see a group of huskies sitting on the grass. It turned out they were chained up, so nothing to worry about.

The lake was really stunning.

We realised there was still ice at the far end of it.

That was really surprising as while it didn't exactly feel warm, it definitely felt above freezing.

Once we'd finished admiring the view we had to turn around and retrace our steps past the huskies...

...and past the church, back to the ferry.

We made it back with plenty of time to spare, before the ferry pulled out of Sisimiut at 21.00. We now have another night on the ferry, before arriving in our final destination of Ilulissat tomorrow afternoon.