day 2: smooth sailing and shock hiking

in the evening of our first day we started sailing overnight from ilulissat, and i had the best sleep in a long time. smooth sailing, baby! if the waters are always as calm as that, i could live in a boat.

after breakfast, i hung out at the deck to marvel at everything. like, man, i'm really here. far away from home. not having to be at work for 'push to live' support. no developers who enjoy being told what to do pinging me for help. no lovro asking for puzzle time with mama. just me, with a few people, the vastness of the arctic, and a lot of time on my hands. exactly what i needed.

good mystical morning!

we made a pit stop while traversing somewhere along sarqaq. anchored, the captain dared "anybody up for a swim?". four people changed to swim suits and completed the challenge.

i remember that in the packing checklist, it was indeed mentioned to bring swim suits. i somehow imagined there would be a hot tub and thought wow, that is some luxury yacht! but no, apparently it was for ice swimming. the closest thing i ever did: during my first belgian winter, my friend siti and i took a cold, outdoor shower at tante tine's but then we ran straight to the sauna for refuge. ice swimming is a whole new league for my tropics-raised self. maybe someday when i grow a pair?

karel, our ultra-running iron man. of course he had to do it.

just watching them do this made me shiver. i took out my bottle of sake and had my morning alcohol while aptly reading a murakami book. olivier and pieter looked like they needed warmth, so i gave them shots. potential drinking buddies? check.

we sailed further up along sullorsuaq strait, and around late afternoon, we docked somewhere along that stretch on the island (see map below) and did what i can only describe as shock hiking. it was walking on a flat surface for maybe ten minutes, and then suddenly walking up on a 30-45 degree incline. luckily this was just a two-hour ordeal. 

day 2 sailing route via snap.ocens.com

short and steep

when we had our break, willem gave us a bit of history/geology lesson. he talked about how qeqertaq literally means island in greenlandic. the big, isolated island where we were facing is called qeqertarsuaq which meant large island. the rocks in the area are the oldest in the history of earth, more than 2 billion years old, he said. and we're walking over them. how cool is that?!

edge of glory

side story: i used google image search to try and figure out exactly what this place is called. i uploaded the photo below. google doesn't know WHERE it is, but at least it knows WHAT it is :D

THE cliff

well played, google.

*****

that was a good way to work up an appetite. dinner was nice again, and i'm beginning to find that as my favorite part of the day. as it's a full-board cruise, meals are provided for the whole trip. the best thing about it, every dinner comes with a carafe of wine. woot!

i was feeling good, so one carafe was not enough that night. after dinner i headed to my favorite spot - the front deck - and brought with me the floating bottle of red wine. pieter and olivier came to hang out, and we shared the bottle. to celebrate the midnight sun, we took this photo at exactly midnight!

at some point, pieter pointed out that he saw a whale far away, puffing through its blowhole. olivier and i looked at each other and agreed that maybe pieter had too much wine. the next day we learnt that someone else saw the said whale, and pieter was proud to have been proven wrong.

an hour on and we were gently reminded that the crew's sleeping quarters are in fact, directly underneath where we were, and at 1 in the morning it's okay to have fun but a bit of vocal restraint is appreciated. oopsie. 

and with that we had to wrap up day two. at this point, sleeping with the sun out still felt weird, but there's nothing that a good day's hike and night cap couldn't fix.