Helen's Story From Today
Today we were in Paamiut, Greenland, our first stop in Greenland and somewhere I’d been very much looking forward to seeing.
We’d actually arrived late the night before, anchoring just outside the entrance to the harbour. One of the first things I noticed was the sea. After Norway, where the water had been that amazing deep blue, here it was noticeably greener. Apparently Greenland was going to start looking different before we’d even stepped ashore.
We woke around 8am and decided on a nice slow start to the morning with breakfast in the Dining Room. I finally tried the pancakes, while Mike stuck with the Indian breakfast he has become rather fond of.
Fed and watered, it was time to see if we could actually get ashore.
The Tender Experiment
Paamiut was a tender port and, rather surprisingly, getting ashore turned out to be extremely easy. We wandered down, joined the queue and before long were sitting on a tender heading into town.
I’d expected quite a few people to get off and explore, but apparently not. A lot of people seemed quite happy staying aboard. Their loss.
Paamiut has a population of around 1,300 people, so calling it a small town is probably being generous. It’s more like a village by New Zealand standards. But almost immediately I liked it.
There were no big attractions, no polished tourist area and certainly no souvenir shops every ten metres. It was simply people going about their lives, which is exactly what made it interesting.
At this point Mike and I decided to split up for the day. He headed off to do his thing and I headed off to do mine.
Which, naturally, involved stationery.
The Great Greenland Postcard Mission
We didn’t really have a plan other than walking around and seeing what we could find, but one thing I did want was postcards.
You would think buying postcards in Greenland would be relatively straightforward.
You would be wrong.
I found the local store and managed to buy postcards, but no stamps. Apparently the stamps were sold somewhere else. Of course they were.
Still… Postcards ✔ Helen happy ✔. It really doesn’t take much.
The next problem was finding somewhere to actually sit and write them, so eventually I decided it would be easier to return to the ship. A couple of hours later — yes, somehow writing postcards became a couple-of-hours activity — they were finally ready.
Now I just had to get them back to Greenland.
Waiting for a Tender… to Dock
By about 1:30pm I was on a tender heading back into Paamiut. There were only four of us going ashore, which seemed promising.
Kinda.
Getting to the dock wasn’t the problem. Actually getting onto the dock was.
There was congestion at the little port, so our tender ended up sitting there for around 20 minutes waiting for somewhere to unload us. This did at least give the four of us front-row seats to watch the crew trying to load tenders full of, shall we say, less agile passengers as quickly and safely as possible.
Eventually it was our turn and our tender docked.
Most sensible people would probably have considered returning to Paamiut for a second time that day to be not the greatest idea. Or so I was about to be told.
Because as I got off my tender, who should I find standing in the queue waiting to get onto a tender? Mike.
So there we were: me arriving back in Greenland and Mike desperately trying to escape it.
I asked if he wanted to turn around, walk back into town with me and help post my postcards.
That was a very hard NO.
Apparently he’d already been standing in the tender queue for over an hour. Fair enough. We waved goodbye and continued in completely opposite directions.
Postcard Mission: Part Two
So off I went again. I walked further up into town, found myself a bench and sat down with some washi tape and stickers to seal up the envelopes.
Yes — the postcards came with envelopes!
I then headed off to the store to finally get the things posted. Interestingly, it seemed to cost the same to send them to the UK as it did to Australia and New Zealand.
Postcard mission officially accomplished.
And because I was in absolutely no hurry whatsoever to return to the tender queue, the next obvious thing to do when you’ve travelled halfway around the world to Greenland was to sit on a bench sticking bits of paper into a journal and writing about what I could see.
Perfectly normal behaviour.
I ended up sitting near a lovely lady who was drawing in her notebook. We got chatting and discovered she was originally from the UK but now lives in Prague. She and her husband are also keen travellers and journalers and were quite happily sitting there taking in the view too, so naturally we had plenty to talk about.
That’s one of the things I love about travelling. Sometimes the best bits aren’t excursions or famous landmarks. They’re sitting on a random bench in a tiny Greenland village talking to someone you’ve never met before.
The Queue… What Queue?
Eventually I decided it was probably time to head back to the ship. I walked down the hill, came around the corner towards the port and prepared myself for tender-queue Armageddon.
Except… what queue?
There were about ten people waiting and one tender had literally just left. Apparently the secret to Greenland tendering is simply to ignore the queue for an hour or two until everyone else has gone.
Noted.
By then things were starting to wind down ashore anyway. The crew were packing up all the port-side equipment — hot chocolate, chains, gazebos and all the bits and pieces that magically appear whenever we arrive somewhere. It was quite fascinating watching the whole little HAL operation disappear again. Within a few minutes there was almost no sign we’d ever been there.
The final tender of the day was behind ours and soon Paamiut was disappearing into the distance.
It’s funny — there really isn’t a huge amount to do there in the traditional tourist sense, and perhaps that’s exactly why I enjoyed it. We wandered, I found postcards, hunted down somewhere to post them, sat on a bench journalling, talked to people and watched everyday life happening around us.
Sometimes that’s all you need.
Back Onboard
Back aboard I caught up with Mike and we headed to the Dining Room for dinner — shrimp roll, duck spaghetti and, somewhat historically, I skipped dessert. Please record this moment appropriately, as it may never happen again.
From there it was our usual evening wander around the ship: music quiz at the Rolling Stone Lounge, a few laughs watching the end of a rather ridiculous game show at BB King’s, and plans to stay for the band at 8:30pm. Those plans lasted until Mike decided he’d had enough for one day and was asleep by 9pm.
I, naturally, was not.
So while Mike slept, I headed up to the Crow’s Nest with my journal and spent another couple of hours catching up on the day’s adventures while watching the sun slowly disappear towards the horizon. At around 11:30pm I finally decided I should probably give this sleeping thing a go too.
And that was Paamiut. Tiny town, two tender trips, one disappearing tender queue, several postcards and a ridiculous amount of journalling.
I’d call that a successful first day in Greenland.
Tomorrow: Nuuk, Greenland’s capital.
After tiny little Paamiut, I’m expecting practically a metropolis.
Well… Greenland-style anyway.
Mike's Story From Today
Today we visited the tiny town of Paamuit. We actually arrived early the night before, and the ship sat in the same position all night. It was calm and quiet.
The town has no port capable of taking a ship our size, and we had a park some way away, so the tender ride was longer than usual
[photo]
There wasn’t much in the way of shore excursions other than walking tours, so like most people we opted to just walk around town.
This is a very small town, who main industry is fishing. It isn’t setup for cruise ships, and just goes about its daily life. We just arrive and take over the town like ants sprawling everywhere.
The town is super cute but infrastructure is basic. Houses are built directly on rock. Roads have no edging, no footpaths, and apart from businesses and ambulances most people walk and there are’t many cars here.
Once ashore, Helen and I walked to the supermarket for a nosey and a few supplies. Then Helen would return to the ship.
I came prepared to walk around, I had downloaded walking maps, there are some hiking trails around the town, and a few lookouts.
I saw the first lookout and followed my map, but there were no signs and I could not find a trail. I then walked around the edge of town towards another detail and eventually ended up crossing a boggy, wet area with a small small streams. There was a path to follow so I continued, and some wet parts were covered with plywood or old wooden crates, giving me confidence this was a trail of sorts, in a rustic Greenland sort of way.
I eventually ended up back on a road where I expected to be, so headed to the trail as the map showed. Again, no signs anywhere, so I followed what looked like a trail. Soon I was out of the town, taken a few turns, and surrounded by rocky hills.
I wasn’t lost, but the walk became more difficult, and eventually the trail ran out. I didn’t want to continue and risk getting lost or stuck, so did an about turn and headed back. I ran into a few cruise passengers having the same experience as me.
I then headed towards the town cemetery which is a notable feature. It is all made of wooden crosses, no headstones.
It was dead quiet here (no pun intended) and a nearby house had someone playing an accordion on their porch so I sat to listen for a while.
Next I headed back towards the port, but had noticed a lookout up on a rocky hill that many people were walking up to, so went here myself.
It was a mean walk up a hill and then many stairs. At the top was a tower that took two people at a time. It required climbing stairs and then opening a hatch door which you then close to stand on.
The view of the town was amazing and we could also see our ship nearly.
I then wanted to return to the ship. The queue for the tender was about 30 minutes long, so I sat to wait for it to get shorter. It doubled in length! So I walked around town some more, to get a few photos of the local church.
Unfortunately when I joined the queue for our tender, it was an hour long.
Helen returned to shore and we bumped into each other at the tender. I was getting on as she was getting off. She asked if I wanted to walk into town. After queueing for an hour, I declined, who can blame me for that?!?
So this was our first experience of Greenland. Very rustic, authentic, and amazing landscape. I can’t wait to see more.
No comments:
Post a Comment