I am on a 5-hour cruise northward from Longyearbyen. Northward toward the 80th parallel.
Out of the boat windows, it looks like the Alps after the great flood. If we could pull the drain plug, we may find Zermatt down there somewhere. Innsbruck, too. Some of the valleys are snow, but it is easy to visualize them as clouds, 10000 feet up. There is no evidence this is an island. It is just water and peaks and sky.
I take photos. But 4×6 is the wrong size. I need 4×60. I need a wall border. 365-degrees of water and snow. To focus in, I resort to using my fingers to block out the sky and the sea. I wonder when the last person was up there. I wonder if there is a polar bear watching our boat. I wonder how cold it is there. I go back inside the cabin, still amazed.
If I use my fingers, I can get a perspective
Coincidentally, there is a geology professor on the boat with us. I tell him it looks like Hawaii and ask if it is volcanic here. He tells me it is a geological coincidence. Today, I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in magic.
Our boats passes a cliff with a waterfall pouring down the side. It is another view of Hawaii–this one a view of the Big Island from the helicopter tour. The waterfall is probably hundreds of feet high, but from here it looks like a pee stream. Like a trapper had too many Isbjørn beers.
If you look toward the upper right, you can see a waterfall. The little boat on shore wrecked decades ago.
Perspective is impossible. The fjords need markings. The Statue of Liberty is this high. The Gateway Arch is this high. We could put marks on the rock face, like the pencil marks showing the height of my brothers on the kitchen wall. There is a map onboard, and I try to find the elevation. Most of the cliffs are 500-600 feet high. That’s nearly the Gateway Arch. Sorry bout it, Lady Liberty. You can’t even shine your torch over the top of the cliff. But you can probable put your torch out with the waterfall’s stream.
The only perspective I have is this cruise ship. It’s not the world’s largest, but it easy to see why the mountains nearly render my camera useless.
Cruise ship in Longyearbyen harbor
I took a fjord cruise in Norway before. My words weren’t enough then either.