During this voyage, named The Epic 80 we have visited extraordinary places, places of beauty, places of silent magnificence, and places with wildlife as only the Arctic can deliver–and all of these places has been impossible to visit without our trusted expedition vessel as our tool of exploration. But today was different, at least for me personally, because suddenly I was home. Since I have spent a large portion of my life so far, in Disko Bay, living in Ilulissat, today’s visit is special in many senses, the weather gods rewards our visit with fabulous weather and lots of ice!
Our morning starts out bright and early, so early that some of us still feel the dancing from our Spice Boyz evening yesterday. In the morning many of us join the local boats out to the UNESCO site icefiord that makes Ilulissat so famous, while others join a walk out to the old Inuit settlement of Sermermiut. Here the view over the icefiord is also stunning, all in all, in Ilulissat the ice is EVER present, anytime one looks out over the water, there it is, majestic and white in the crisp September air. Our local guides tells and educate us all about the size of all of this ice and the numbers are mindboggling. The local boats comes in many colors and shapes, but are all skillfully handled by their captains and more than a few megabits of camera memory is filled to the brim with shots of white beauty.
A lot of us have lunch on board while others are dining in town in one of the many cafes and restaurants, and after lunch it is time for historical city walks and the famed flightseeing over the UNESCO area, all the way to the indlandice. During the city tour we visit the city center and wonder about how life would be in such a distant location, while the guides try their best to fill our heads with history and culture. The flight, even though the last departure was a bit delayed, is splendid, the view is hard to describe and will stick with us for a long time into the future.
All in all it is a very nice day back in civilization, and for me a very nice way to show everyone the very place in this world I love the most, Ilulissat!
