Cruising with Rexcat and Rexie: Prince Christian Sound, Greenland

On our trip from Iceland to Greenland, we had a special treat in that we had the privilege of transiting through the Prince Christian Sound. This stunning fjord separates the mainland of Greenland with the Christian IV island and other islands near the southernmost tip of Greenland.

The Prince Christian Sound connects the Labrador Sea with the Irminger Sea. It is around 60 miles long and it is narrow, sometimes only 1500 feet wide. There is only one settlement along this sound, Aappilattoq. More on this settlement later.

The sound offers beautiful scenery with steep mountains often more than 38,000 feet high, with glaciers going straight into the water, creating icebergs.

As we enter the sound, we see our first icebergs.

Almost immediately, we see our first glacier. It is cold and we will probably not see the glaciers calf, but there is always hope. The icebergs came from somewhere.

The glacier is at the bottom of a mountain with a ring of fog at the top.

As we proceed, we begin seeing continual icebergs.

And then the scenery gets even more dramatic.

And then another glacier, even bigger than the first.

As we came up to the narrowest point in the sound, we spied an iceberg in the middle of this gap.

We had taken on an Ice Captain in Iceland and it was his job to guide us through situations like this. It was amazing as the entire ship would move sideways while the thrusters were on to side-step an iceberg. Then, they would use the thrusters on the other side. This took place all day long.

Around the next turn, we could see another glacier high up on the hillside.

You can imagine the thrill of the passengers upon going through this area. But the joy and excitement of the crew members was tough to top. Many of these had never seen snow, let alone icebergs. Even if they were working, they would steal away a few moments to take pictures of this marvelous wonder.

These walls are almost straight up and down. We were surprised that moss would even grow on these.

A great shot of one of the tall mountains in the background of the Carnival Legend.

Another glacier.

Note the stream down the side Note the stream down the side of the rock. His is actually ice and apparently froze in place as it flowed down.

This shot just shows all the people that were outside the majority of the day.

More ice.

Notice how blue the ice looks.

If you look close, you can see the part of the iceberg that is below the waterline.

Many of the sides of the sound should where the rock had slid into the sound.

This iceberg looked like a turtle.

Rexie in her wheelchair peeks above the railing.

Notice the blue water pond on this iceberg.

Part way through the sound, we stopped at a settlement called Aappilattoq. Several crew members left the ship by the ships tender and delivered postcards to the post office in this village. We had all been given a post card to be mailed from here and Carnival paid for the postage. The interesting fact about this location is that this is the most northern post office that actually post marks their own mail. We now have a postcard coming to us from this very unique location.

The actual settlement only has 110 people actually living in this village. You can see some of the houses perched on the rock in the next couple of pictures. Most of the village is hidden from view behind the rock outcropping.