Five hundred miles north of Cape Farvell we crossed, for the forth time in Shimshal's existence, the Arctic Circle. Curiously, as we did so, the clouds parted, the sun came out and the day grew warmer. By the time we had docked in the bustling harbour of Sisimiut we had shed our oil skins and thinsulate one piece suits and were back to wearing clothes more appropriate for a Scottish summertime cruise. It was almost warm! It was certainly bright and sunny.
We squeezed ourselves in between the never ending stream of open fishing boats to find a comfortable berth alongside an old wooden fishing boat with a harpoon gun mounted on the foredeck. Juuliana was, in turn, rafted against Sikiuk IV a sturdily built patrol vessel identical to her sister ships we had seen in Qaqortoq and Nuuk. All of them built in Torshavn and painted conspicuous red. Already docked on the main quay was a massive, Bahamas registered, cruise liner with it's cargo of German tourists spilled throughout town.
Sisimiut is a quaint town built, as every where in Greenland, on and between great knobs of rock. It was busy. A digger clawed away at the seabed dredging out a new and improved fishing quay. Speed boats swarmed in and out. Some with crates of cod, some with families on board and some with the antlers and carcasses of caribou weighing down the bows. In town every other male had a gun strapped to his back. Apart, that is, from the German tourists from the liner. They carried digital SLR's with improbably long zoom lenses. Not only had we crossed the the Arctic Circle but, it seemed, we had entered a frontier town. A working town of hunters, whale catchers and fishermen.
Very little English was spoken here. A passing boat sold us a cod that was still twitching. All we could gather from the transaction was that the fisherman's name was Adam and that he couldn't understand why we only wanted one cod and not the whole crate. I'm not sure what we would have ended up with had the carribou boat have stopped by to sell us it's mornings catch!
Tim, without overalls, neatly despatched the quivering cod with one of my prized winch handles and then dissected it to the delight of the fish eaters amongst us and to the disgust of the non-fish eaters. "So fresh" they said, "it doesn't even smell of fish". It seems odd to me that those that profess to like fish so much prefer it when it doesn't smell of fish! Any way they enjoyed it and tonight, for the first time in a very long time, we have a restaurant booked and Musk ox is on the menu. I am hoping that that too doesn't smell of fish!
I got my internet fix in the fisherman's hostel. Internet in Greenland is ludicrously expensive with mobile data costing up to a £1 for an MB and wifi at £5/hour. I'm curious about why, with so much Danish infrastructure investment around, no attempt is made to make Digital infrastructure affordable? How can a society this remote continue to prosper without that essential, modern day, building block? Anyway I got online and connected with what was going on in the world outside. A world we are just nine day away now from re-entering.