Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Getting to the boat

Our Road Scholar group left Reykjavik yesterday afternoon, taking a chartered Icelandair flight to meet our boat, the Ocean Diamond, in Kangerlussuaq. There's an airport there, but no town. I'm accustomed to getting myself to the airport, checking myself in and finding my gate. Instead, we followed our guide through the airport, obedient as fourth graders. Trust the process, I told myself.



The plane landed. My travel companion Terra and I were seated near the back of the plan, so we were nearly the last to disembark. We descended the stairway, walked across the tarmac and entered the terminal building. None of our group members were in sight. An Ocean Diamond t-shirted person greeted us and said, "Get on a bus outside." I said, "What about our luggage?" They said, "It will be delivered to you."

Four buses waited in the parking lot to the rear of the terminal. We still did not see any of our group members. An Ocean Diamond person said, "You can get on the bus and they will come." At this point I was not trusting the process. What if everyone was still inside the terminal someplace, waiting for us?" Still, all the buses were going to the ship.

Our vehicle was an old yellow school bus with deteriorated stairs. And the road was bumpy for the whole 20-minute ride to the pier. There were some hills on the way, and I was reminded of the time years ago when we had six kids in a used motorhome going over the mountains. The engine overheated and we had to pull over to the side of the road until it cooled down. This time, though, the bus groaned over the top of the hill and descended to the water.

And there we found the rest of our group.

Our guide put on our life jackets for us. We waited until it was our turn to join another eight people to board a Zodiac, which would take us to the Ocean Diamond.


We were welcomed by the ship staff and it felt wonderful to be aboard at last.




4 comments:

DJan said...

That would have been scary for me, but you managed just fine. I'm glad you were not alone in the process! I look forward to the next adventure! :-)

Linda Reeder said...

You certainly had cause for doubt. So far, so good.

Tom said...

Quite a trip! I keep looking at Road Scholar, wanting to find one for B and me. We almost got one this fall, but by the time we finally decided, it was booked up. Oh well, we'll keep on the hunt.

dkzody said...

I admire your courage for such an adventure. Just reading your post created a lot of anxiety. I cannot imagine having to live it.