SAC: The colour of water

Before the Olympics takes over another quick post about the sail to the Arctic Circle.

I've been asked about whether the water changed colour at all, and the answer was dramatically yes it did, as can be seen in the figures above.

The left hand side shows typical dark stone gray of the North Atlantic, which is what we saw most of the time.

However when we sailed round the NW tip of Iceland the water changed colour into a creamy light blue, as can be seen on the right hand side above.

This we assumed was the East Greenland Current, which comes from the north and is fed by melting glaciers. Therefore its salinity is much lower than normal.

The encourages micro organisms to flourish and that's the colour we see (or at least that's how I understand it - if wrong please add your comments).

Sometimes you could clearly see the line in the water, like two rivers joining.

The air felt colder too, making it a more physical experience than actually crossing the Arctic Circle itself.