Coastal Ferry

The Sarfaq Ittuk, Greenland's only passenger ferry, makes the 700 mile trip between Ilulissat and Narsaq in 72 hours. Running at about 13 mph, she completes a round trip once each week. It's the major means of transportation along the country's west coast.

The 240-foot ship can carry small freight and 240 passengers in a variety of accommodations ranging from seats for short-haul day trippers to double cabins with private bath for the First Class long-haul folks.

The ferry was totally self-sufficient. Not only did it have a cafeteria and hospital facilities, it carried
its own box office that was lowered overboard at every stop to process passengers onto the ship.
It also carried a fearsome amount of emergency equipment ... just in case it was necessary to
abandon ship. We never had a lifeboat drill, but I picked out my spot anyway. Drawing about 12
feet of water, the ship couldn't actually dock at all its ports of call. So it also carried its own
launch, which it deployed to send passengers ashore in several ports.

It seemed strange for a ship the size of the Sarfaq Ittuk to stop at some of the tiny villages. The even larger freighters, however, made sense. But then
as we came into Nuuk, there was a genuine ocean liner size cruise ship gleaming against the dark hills. The ship probably held more people than the town.
At every port, towns people turned out to greet the ferry. It appeared most of them had no reason. They weren't meeting anyone; they didn't pick up any
freight. The ferry's arrival was just the big event of the week.

The ferry was five hours late getting into Ilulissat because of the ice. So it spent the next few
days making up the time by cutting port stops to the barest possible minimum. That meant no
time to go ashore and explore. No matter, the weather was rotten, rainy and cold for most of
the sail. So our views were limited to what we could see from deck. Many of the pictures on
the Southern Scenes page were taken from the ferry rail. But there were other interesting
sights -- like the village dump below (Well, I thought it was interesting.) And, of course, the
constant parade of glaciers, and mountains, and the deep blue sea.