Lyhyt matkapäiväkirja risteilyltä Reykjavikista Kangerlussuaqiin, 15.7. - 25.7.2009

Risteily M/S Kristina Reginalla:
Reykjavik - Qaqortoq - Narsaq - Nuuk - Evighedsfjorden - Ilulissat - Sisimiut - Kangerlussuaq.
http://www.kristinacruises.com/
23.7.2009 Ilulissat, Grönlanti

Risteily M/S Kristina Reginalla:
Reykjavik - Qaqortoq - Narsaq - Nuuk - Evighedsfjorden - Ilulissat - Sisimiut - Kangerlussuaq.
http://www.kristinacruises.com/
23.7.2009 Ilulissat, Grönlanti
Lähestymme satamaa ja ohitamme pieniä kalastusveneitä sekä suuremman punaisen aluksen jonka miehistö vilkuttaa meille. Nostan käteni pystyyn ja vastaan tervehdykseen laajalla kädenheilautuksella. Satamassa tutunnäköiset talot odottavat jälleen rantautumistamme ja muutama utelias paikallinenkin on saapunut seuraamaan tapahtumaa.
Tänään on vuorossa retkipäivä ja odottelemme retkibussiamme jonka on määrä viedä meidät pienelle vaellusretkelle Ilulissatin jäävuonon luokse Sermermiutin laaksoon. Bussi ajaa rämisten satamaan ja hyppään reppuineni kyytiin. Ajelemme läpi






Äskeinen venekokemus oli niin suuri, että täältä maista on vaikea löytää mitään vastaavaa ja kävelen vain katuja ylös alas. Käyn kirkolla mutta vain meri on se joka nyt hallitsee mieltäni. Kadut kierrättävät minua ympäri, pankkiautomaatilla ihmiset jonottavat. Käyn kaupassa ostamassa postimerkkejä postikortteja varten. Söpön näköinen myyjätyttö hymyilee ja ojentaa merkit ja jään hölmistyneenä tuijottamaan, kunnes hän naurahtaa ja herään päiväunestani. Hymyilen leveää hymyä takaisin ja palaan ulos auringonpaisteeseen täynnä iloa.
Sitten näen jotain, jonka haluan ehdottomasti kokea. Astun sisään kioskiin jossa on kokoontuneena nuoria ihmisiä. Astun tiskin vieressä olevan jäätelöaltaan viereen ja löydän kuin löydänkin etsimäni. Nuori miesmyyjä

Valaat saattavat matkaani
Isojen jäävuorten lähteillä
On mun sieluni koditon
Arktisen auringon tähteillä
On mun rakkauteni turvaton
Routaisen sydämeni takamailla
Mä aina jotain ikävöin
English translation....
It's a bright morning. I climb up to the deck and watch as countless icebergs on the both sides of the boat are building like a readymade lane for us that we move along, making tight turns every now and then. Ilulissat - the iceberg factory. Here the massive icebergs are born. If the earlier icebergs seemed to be big, here they are gigantic. Water is dead calm as we slowly travel through the dreamlike scenery. I'm standing on the deck and stare the icebergs, all the way from the bright-whites up to the ice-blues and the sight is so stunningly beautiful. I feel how the outside world is slowly disappearing and I am somewhere far away alone, in the middle of emptiness in that state of mind of mine, which I maybe cannot reach anywhere else.
We are closing in the harbour by passing some small fishing boats and also one bigger red ship whose crew are waving to us. I raise my arm and respond their hail with a wide wave. In the harbour the familiar-looking houses awaits for our disembarkation again and couple of curious locals have come to follow the event.
Today it's a turn for the excursion day and we are waiting for our tour bus that is going to take us to small hiking trip to Ilulissat icefjord in Sermermiut Valley. The bus comes rattling to the harbour and I jump aboard with my backbag. We are driving through Ilulissat town and pass the area where we can see lots of sled dogs either in their cages or chained to the leashes. Here the dogs are no pets but tools. Finally after a long taking bus drive the bus leaves us near the sanitorium of alcoholistics, where wooden covered path starts through the vulnerable nature. In Greenland even one footprint in a wrong place can harm the nature and it might take tens of years to recover from it. We are walking towards the seashore and the faraway looming huge icebergs. Mosquitos start to irritate me and everytime we stop for a while, there's the huge swarm of mosquitos attacking. They don't bite like their Finnish fellow creatures, but are crowding into my eyes, nose, ears and mouth. But the mosquitos are the least danger here, the biggest danger is the surprising surge that can wash you away if you happen to be on the seashore at the same time when huge piece cracks and falls down from those faraway icebergs. The faraway hitting tsunami can be very disastrous and I understand it when I look those enormous hundreds of meters high icebergs.
We climb on the top of a high cliff where is a fantastic view to Ilulissat iceberg fjord. The sight is totally unbelievable when massive icebergs are packing one after another, and some of them stucking to the bottom of hundreds of meters deep fjord until the next one pushes them again on the move. From time to time loud noises are heard, like gunshots when Icebergs crack and their walls fall into the sea. Now it would be a perfect moment to enjoy my lunch, cheese sandwiches and red wine that I brought from the ship, but the mosquitos are straight from hell and constantly attacking me and making me crazy. I feel like raging and want to run away these insane-making mosquitos, but eventually I'm abided just to whisk them and keep on a steady movement, Although in vain.
I ask permission from the guide to leave and try to catch up the other group going ahead us, because our group would now turn and return the same route back to the pick-up place of the bus. While the other group is continuing their walk through more difficult terrain - and - by catching them up most likely I could keep going so that the mosquitos wouldn't bother me so much. And secondly I enjoy much more these landscapes walking alone in the silence, traveling in the edge of emptiness of my mind, in the barren landscape that is drawing the outlines of my inner self.
The excursion ends up to the harbour where a new excursion is started rightaway. I managed to work it out even though it was already sold out. My good karma seems to follow me always when I'm on top, it's like magic, I think. I jump into a wooden motorboat among the others and we start our trip towards the enormous icebergs sailing in the middle of the icefjord. I sit my back against the cabin wall in the middle of the boat and watch the evanescent sceneries. Clane is chugging forward fairly fast and the skipper's son taken with us is peeping forward from the front window. The sun is shining, cold sea wind sweeps against face and the white icebergs are dazzling although I'm wearing sunglasses. I look forward trying not to take a hold of all these images that are flowing past me. Although the life is heaven, my hunger is however growing forever. Where does it take me?
Our group sitting on the deck is mostly consisting of bird watchers and sometimes it feels that they are paying more attention to the birds flying around us than to this timeless moment and the unforgettable sceneries. But I'm not interested in sabine's gulls because I'm living right here and right now. For this time only. And for sure the last time. My fragments of dreams are closing in me in these deep waters, from the shatters I piece together that puzzle which makes me happy. When we are driving through the ice glitter and it wheezes against the sides of the boat, it gives me creeps. Momentarily I fall into somewhere again, into the twilight zone of longing. Of touching and of being together. I am here so alone, in the middle of everyone, but still all alone. Besides me a couple sighs… "so romantic". And I stare at the blue water. It soothes, but doesn't take away the feeling that only one can know. I walk the tightrope between the icebergs, in the other side of the good and the bad feelings. Flitting through the world of dreams.
I become conscious when our skipper kills the engine and fishes big piece of ice with a dip net. "It's time to take little bit grog", he says with bad english and cackles with laughter showing Martini bottle. A head-sized piece of ice block crackles and multihundred years old and in a deep pressure grown ice splinters into small chips even if the ice pick is just slightly shown to it. We fill the plastic cups with Martini and put some ice chips within. Skål is echoing in the Disko Bay, when we knock back and "turn some history". The sea is totally calm and quiet, I remove my long-sleeved shirt and sunbathe in sheer T-shirt with Bob Marley's voice inside of me. In the radiance of the sun I glow almost as bright as the icebergs and the sunrays are piercing into my heart. "Lovely", say the women and want to take photos of me in a rival way. I pose on the railing against the icebergs having the "thumbs up"-feeling and have a conqueringly wide smile... Is this the perfection and the serenity of life… the lengthy seconds when everything is just full of this moment… Letting loose of everything and yet still being so immanent. The soul on fire.
The boat returns us to the dock and I circle the town without really finding anything. The recent boating experience was so huge that it's hard to find anything suchlike here on the shore and I just walk the streets up and down. I visit the church but it's just the sea that is now possessing my mind. The streets are circulating me all over, and the people are queuing at the automated teller machine. I go to the mall to buy stamps for the postcards. A cute looking salesgirl smiles at me handing over the stamps and I stand bedazzled until she gives a laugh and I wake up from my daydream. I smile back widely and return out to the sunlight with full of delight.
Then I see something, something that I really must experience. I step into the kiosk where's gathered some young people. I walk over the freezer next to the counter and finally find what I'm looking for. A young clerk hits the price to the cash register and I slip pile of crowns to the desk. At the front door a beautiful dark-haired girl is leaning on the wall and starts to smile and giggle to me as I catch with her a significant eye contact. I show her my ice cream stick and leave the kiosk with smile and whistling… As I leave I hear a fresh laughter behind me and outside I am tasting some Eskimo, literally. ;-)
On my way to the ship I still walk through the side-streets, stop by the sea and feel this surrealisticy. These hot rocky beaches by the sea could be from Helsinki, but those icebergs by the shore makes me confused. I look at these houses, these people. What is happiness, where's the secret of it? Here in desolation country - loneliness combines us. Would I be happy here? The gluttonous teeth of the lonesomeness. I drown myself to the deep cuts.
On the ship's deck I turn my eyes to the sun, that is guiding me once again. I hang on in the strong feeling of intuition. Now I'm vulnerable again, I open the red wine and stare into space. In the flaming sun of Disko Bay. I write a poem to the postcard and feel my time diminishing when I'm thousands of miles away. By the rippling mind of mine. And in the reflection of my eyes there is touch from a distance that could comfort. The fragments of my dreams. A sheer phantasy.
On the sea thousands of miles away
The whales are escorting my way
At the source of the huge icebergs
My soul always being homeless
In the remains of the arctic sun
I hold my unsheltered love
At the hinterland of my frosted heart
Always someone to yearn when I'm apart
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