The Hansiatic Realm 5-20-12

Near Bergen, Norway

The best I can guess is I’m about 1,650 miles north of my hometown, about dead even with the southern boundaries of Canada’s Northwest Territories, almost 5,000 miles east, and perhaps 600 miles west of St Petersburg, Russia. There’s something delicious about visiting realms new to me for the first time. At 4 AM I sit here in an amazing library on board a grand old European ship, waiting for the first speck of light to ignite over the legendary fjords of Norway’s west coast, a delicious anticipation of something I’ve long wanted to experience. There’s not a soul to be seen, curious since there are 1,370 passengers and 650 crew members within very short distance.

Daylight was still present at 10:30 PM last night, despite summer solstice being five weeks away. Despite our proximity to midsummer the high temperature yesterday was about 40 degrees; quite a contrast to the ninety degrees, humidity, and insects found in South Carolina, where winter did not occur this year.

The North Sea is a mercurial, nearly anthropomorphic reality, fussy and irritable at times. Alas, we’ve experienced this irritability for about eighteen hours and a good part of the ship’s complement is hunkered down, thinking of the merits of solid ground. I did my own share of meditation as well on the virtues of having a firm footing in one’s life. In perhaps two hours I can anticipate glass-like waters enclosed in fine canyons of geologic wonder. The stillness shall be shimmering to my agitated inner ears.

Having just been outside I see clear skies overhead and a rising moon to the east with the sun not far behind, I can only hope the thin band of cloud on the far horizon is not shrouding our views of paradise.