Today was THE DAY … the day, why I had booked this trip … hoping it would turn out better this time – with access to Ilulissat and as such the opportunity to see the icefjord.

Things worked out this time, the bay was (relatively) free of ice, Hanseatic easily maneuvered to its anchor point just in front of town; tender ships were used to get us a ashore.

I had booked the helicopter flight to get a glimpse of the ice fjord from slightly higher up – and also to see the ice flowing in from the ice cap and the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier.

I was in the first group to go … a bus was picking us up from the port, bringing us to the airport. Here – after a short safety briefing – we boarded the helicopter (a Bell 212) and were on our way for a 20 minute flight out to the ice fjord with views of the icecap, then across the fjord and out towards the bay – and back to the airport.

While the views during the flight were amazing, it was fairly impossible to put things into perspective. There are no reference points here, so it all felt very abstract, without a real sense of size … one has to know, that we were looking at five to seven kilometers from one bank of the fjord to the other.

We made our way to the mouth into the bay. It is here, that an underwater threshold blocks the ice from freely flowing into the bay. Pressure needs to build up before  icebergs are released into the bay. The threshold was clearly visible from the helicopter – as a clear line separating the fjord from the bay. After a quick circle flying over some icebergs and the ship we made it back to Ilulissat’s airport.