Same song, second verse…….
We’re now on our 6th of 4 days in Ilulissat, Greenland. Yes, you’re reading the numbers correctly. Similar to yesterday we were up at 5:45 am, leaving for the airport at 7:20 am. Which turned into 7:50 am as the flight coming in from Nuuk would be late. Our group headed for the airport, checked in, and waited for our incoming flight. Originally, our flight was to leave at 7:00 am but was pushed out last night to 9:00 am. No big deal, right?
At the airport, we see another delay pop up – departure estimated for 11:15 am. A helicopter takes off (we would really like to use a helicopter at this point), and then just a few minutes after the helicpoter lifted off, every alarm in the airport (both inside as well as outside) went off. Everyone either looked around worriedly, or they rushed to the window. Since we were sitting next to the window, we could see thick billowing black smoke on the other side of the hangars where the runway is, and airport fire personnel suiting up next to an airport fire truck with lights already going… Did we just the helicopter go down in the strong winds?
Wellll, we were told it was just a drill, albeit not from an airport employee, rather from another airport traveler who said he “knew about it”. Had we not seen so many flight delays due to very inclement weather this may not have been as disturbing as it was. The alarms were turned off inside, and then a few minutes later outside, so maybe it was just a drill.
After that, another delay was posted, to 11:55 am. Then it changed to 12:42 pm. Hurray, we actually were called, and walked out onto the tarmac and boarding the plane around 12:40 pm. We were all smiles and getting settled in for the flight, with the flight attendant started the standard safety protocol instructions. (They actually start a recording that does the talking, but then go through the motions with props when the recording says “like this”.)
Both engines were fired up, and with turbo props, you can really feel the power as they rev up, getting ready to taxi out to the runway. All of a sudden the right side lights went out and the recording stopped. The flight attendant looked surprised, but calmly walked over, the lights came back on, and she started the recording again – from the beginning. (She had been midway through, and was still wearing the life jacket.)
We sat listening to stuff that she’d already shows us, when all of a sudden, the recording stopped again. She was a professional, so we can’t say she looked nervous, but she did look surprised again. She picked up the phone and called the cockpit with some quick discussion. After that discussion, she announced there was a warning light in the cockpit that had come on, and it had to be checked.
We’ve been through this before (a 2 hour delay sitting on a plane waiting for the mechanics to fix the problem and then turn in the paperwork), but always better to err on the side of caution. The door was opened again and another safety orange covered employee came on, stepped into the cockpit for a minute, and then left. Had he fixed it that fast? Were we ready to get out of here finally?
Ummm, NO. We were off alright, off the airplane!! We disembarked and returned to the terminal, watching our plane being towed into the repair hangar. It was a pretty quick half hour or so, with us wondering could they repair the light, when an announcement in Greenlandic that got a reaction from our tour leader. Yep, the flight was cancelled and we needed to collect our luggage… Again… Just like yesterday.
As we were collecting our luggage, we heard Christine (one of our trip mates) say, yea, I thought the flame in the engine was probably not good. WHAT!!!! You saw flame and smoke in our left engine and you calmly didn’t say anything about it? Well, better delayed than dead!
If you’re keeping track (and you’re not….but we are), in the past two days, we’ve seen one flight get moved up, about 10 flight delays, one flight cancelled due to inclement weather, and one flight cancelled due to technical issues.
Today was cold and rainy, and we stood outside in the rain (Tim and Jay were quite wet) waiting outside over an hour for the shuttle bus that was “on-it’s-way”. Deciding an hour was unacceptable (blaming Air Greenland, not our tour leader or tour company), we took taxis back the hotel. Since we were so delayed in returning, they were better prepared than they were yesterday. Paperwork was laid out, with keys attached, simply waiting for a signature. Whew! That was the easiest thing we’d done all day!
The good news is that, while we were going through this nonsense again, our tour leader was working with the powers that be in the home office in Copenhagen to arrange for some kind of afternoon activity. Keep in mind that we’re in a town with about 5,000 people. And we’ve seen both museums. And visited both grocery stores. And took a boat out to the icebergs. And walked/hiked a lot. We would have volunteered to visit Frank and the Greenlandic Sled Dogs again today, but who wants to spend time outside with 70 wet dogs in the rain?!
The activity they arranged – another boat trip to the icebergs. Everyone went, because it was something to do, even though we had already done this. As it turned out… this was an incredibly better trip, in that it was THROUGH the icebergs and associated sea ice. Our boat captain was entirely comfortable forcing his boat through the ice (slowly of course).
On our first trip, it was sunny and we cruised past the amazing icebergs. On this trip, it was raining and we snaked around the icebergs, but where there was sea ice we genreally turned and went a different direction. The landscape looks quite different without the sun. We stopped multiple times next to smaller icebergs to get a close look and snap some pics. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and both he and the pilot filled our minds with a lot of interesting information. And for three hours, we forgot that we’ve been in Ilulissat for an unplanned extra two days.
Here are more boat trip pics for the blog.
Very fast, there are generally 4 types of ice you’ll find floating…
- – the most common, white ice, which is compressed snow with lots of air bubbles (pieces broken off of the iceburg) – they crackle and pop as the air bubbles escape;
- – black ice, which is re-frozen rain water that collected and froze on the iceburg (dangerous pieces because they are more dense),
- – a mongrel kind which is pieces of iceberg frozen together with sea water, and
- – blue ice, again compressed snow and ice from the glacier, but pieces that have no air bubbles and are thus pure (much more rare);
We bring this up because as the guide is describing the different kinds of ice… miracle of miracles we come upon a large piece of the harder to find bue ice.
And of course as we were heading back in, was able to get some pictures of Ilulissat from the sea.
Tonight was our farewell dinner, that should have taken place in Nuuk. Speaking of Nuuk, the only part of the city we will see is the airport. And it will be a 15 minute visit in the airport. As we’ve mentioned, our tour leader has done an amazing job of taking care of this group, rolling with the punches when issues have arisen. Between today’s boat trip and tonight’s dinner, he was busy working on getting everyone to Copenhagen tomorrow night as originally scheduled. But it was quite a task! He called the office in Copenhagen, who called Air Greenland. Bottom line – barring any intrusions from Mother Nature or flames coming out of a plane engine, we will leave Ilulissat Thursday morning for Nuuk, and will have 15 minutes in Nuuk to go through security and hop on the outbound Copenhagen flight. Since both are Air Greenland flights, Air Greenland said they’ll hold the flight for us, so we feel like we will get to Copenhagen late Thursday night as planned. But… Immaqa (we’ll explain that word tomorrow), as nothing is guaranteed.
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