Living in Newfoundland we live next to iceberg alley. Hundreds of icebergs may drift south every year off our coast. To have them accessible for kayakers we need wind in the right direction to blow them on shore. Some years its hit or miss.
I've had some fantastic days in past years paddling around scores of icebergs. This year they weren't as plentiful close by but we had a couple drift close and we took advantage of the opportunity. On May 28th a group of us left Topsail Beach and headed out to this one.
We spent some time sitting in our kayaks taking in the views and observing the berg from all directions.
On this side two blue streaks crossed at the corner. These are formed by meltwater refreezing in cracks of the glacier. The white colour of the iceberg is caused by air bubbles trapped in the snow and compressed into ice. The meltwater doesn't contain the same amount of air bubbles an is therefore a different colour.
There was one lesser iceberg nearby which we also checked out before returning to the beach.
These icebergs calved off of the Greenland ice sheet don't always drift close enough for us to check them out. On the 28th of May a couple did on a beautiful day and that's why, when it happens, an iceberg paddle will always be on my list of top paddles.
Here's a link to the original post with way more pix of the iceberg and other bergy bits we checked out.
No comments:
Post a Comment