map – David Kotz

Greenland wrap-up

With link to complete photo gallery.

This ends my series of posts (beginning here) about our trip to southern Greenland. I found it to be a beautiful, fascinating place. For convenience, I’ve gathered all the photos and videos in one chronological gallery. Although I feel like we saw a lot, we just scratched the surface – only in the deep south, and only on the coastline. The northern regions, and the interior, are a dramatically different place. Maybe I’ll be able to return someday!

Map of our voyage from Reykjavik Iceland (at right),
just before we reached Kangerlussuaq Greenland (at left).

Greenland

A ten-day cruise from Iceland to the southern coast of Greenland.

Recent trips to the Antarctic [South Georgia, 2023] and the Arctic [Finland, 2024] whet my appetite for exploring further in the polar regions, so I jumped at the chance to cruise southern Greenland in late summer. Indeed, because this cruise began and ended in Iceland, it gave me a chance to expand on my prior visit to Iceland [2024] to explore its southeast coast. Finally, this cruise was aboard the National Geographic Endurance, the same ship we’d sailed on our cruise of South Georgia and the Falklands in 2023, and which I found to be a terrific experience. Read on!

Photo of The Endurance, seen from the icy water near Thryms glacier; Skjoldungensund fjord, Greenland. — The Endurance, seen from the icy water near Thryms glacier; Skjoldungensund fjord, Greenland.

New Zealand is how far south?

New Zealand and New Hampshire are the same latitude!

I have always understood that New Zealand is south of the equator, but I’ve never really recognized how it compares with familiar places north of the equator. Thanks to my friend Troy Baisden, who supplied this handy graphic, it’s easy to see that New Zealand spans roughly the same latitudes as North Carolina to Maine, and even a bit of Canada.

Coincidentally, Aoraki (Mt. Cook) is almost exactly as far south of the equator as Dartmouth is north of the equator. Dartmouth (Baker Tower) is at approximately 43.7 degrees north; Aoraki is at approximately 43.6 degrees south [map].

This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2021, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.