The next day we spent moored off some small town where a ship Vs town soccer match was held and you could also participate in 'Milkaffe' - go to someone's place for coffee and cake. Neither of those interested me, and it being a cold and overcast day, I stayed on board, nothing to report.
We got our de-boarding briefing which, like many of the briefings, was just a bit vague. There is no printed program on this voyage/ship - you have to rely on a simplified presentation on the TV.
Overnight we had sailed calmly up the Kangerlussuaq fjord and were moored in the navigable head of the fjord. Zodiacs to get off, then 25 min bus to the airport.
Unusually, air check-in and immigration was to be held on board. I guess there was a reason for this, but its not an ideal situation.
Checked bags outside your door by midnight, as usual. But they were only taken down to the theatre. At 6:15am the first 3 colour groups were told to assemble at the theatre to start check-in. So about 50 people were there. No, no we'll do it by individual colour groups - you are too early. No, we are not.
We've done exactly as we were told. And of course a proportion of the pax were oblivious to all this and simply joined the queue.
So then you had to collect your bag from one part of the theatre (amongst all the fixed chairs and benches), trundle it forward with you to the check-in 'desk', then part with it, duly tagged, then have your passport stamped.
We saw bags being loaded into a container on a barge tied to us. Good sign - or so we thought.
An hour or so later, first call to get on zodiacs. Then nothing .... nothing ..... We make our way down to the mudroom to find 5 zodiacs ready. We told them about no calls upstairs. The exped leader, who makes these calls is also departing, so I think that led to come non-communication.
At the airport, no one said, but join the security line. This is where it really went off the rails. Long line, 1 x-ray machine. High number of pax clueless about what to take out etc - & no-one saying. Result? Just as a bag is about to go under the ex-ray, Q about liquids & gels, computers made. Oh, so then in >50% of cases, bag had to be opened and rifled through, right there. Sometimes twice. God, it was painful to watch. The next guy didn't learn anything from the guy in front, so same result. And again. And again.
And there are check-in counters there, so still don't know the reason for on-board check-in.
The bird
Then we were delayed on board for an hour as there was some sort of issue in getting the bags off the boat. WTF?
Eventually away, me in 2C again and
@k_sheep took this pic as we flew over Greenland. Text book medial moraines.
) but they did have a range of self-pour beers.
