Iceberg on the doorstep

Last Wednesday evening we spotted a large iceberg in the distance near Long Pond.  Thursday I mailed some of the guys who are also retired to gauge interest in going to check it out.  Clyde, Hazen, Pete and Ron were interested.  We met at Topsail Beach for the paddle to Long Pond but my surprise the berg had drifted north to just off of Topsail Beach.

It didn't look like much from the beach but ...

... a we paddled toward it, it got bigger and ...

... bigger until it ...

... took up the entire field of view.

Behind the huge face that greeted us it sloped away and revealed a darker blue streak of refrozen water.  Somewhere on the glacier of Greenland a crack opened up, water poured in during warmer weather and froze solid when winter temperatures returned.

We mostly floated for a long time admiring the berg from all angles.  Here two bands of refrozen water marks an "X" on the berg.

After some 30 minutes we set off to a smaller, lower iceberg a short distance away.

It wasn't much above head height with lumps of ice scattered on its surface.

Paddling around it I caught the larger berg in the distance which looked further away than it really was.

Ron in what looks to be an iceberg hug.

There was one more iceberg to visit on the way back to Topsail Beach but we stopped to check out this odd shaped bergy bit on the way.  In a posed picture, I caught Hazen on the other side.

The berg nearer to the beach was also a low laying one that extended out under the water.  The colour of the ice underwater was so close to the colour of Ron's Makkovik made in Newfoundland by Eastern Island Kayaks that I talked him into posing over the ice shelf.

Satisfied with our short paddle but our savouring of the three bergs were headed back to the beach for to end the day.  Thanks guys!