New York

September 5, 2016

At Sea!

Well the captain was right.  During the night we started rolling and rocking.  This morning at 5:30 AM we had 8 on the Beaufort scale and folks, that’s rough.  We’re still making 22 knots and headed straight for NYC.  We’ve now cruised 4,222 nautical miles (we think that is 7,600 land miles).  The north Atlantic crossing, well known for rough seas, was calm for us; but Hermine has us now.  

At noon we were seriously rocking, lunch was a balancing act trying to keep glasses and silverware on the table.

By 6 PM we had 80 MPH winds and 12 on the Beaufort scale and that is really rough seas.  Entertainment was cancelled due to unstable conditions for the dancers and musicians.

September 6, 2016

New York City

6 AM finds us coming into NY harbor with winds down to 40 MPH so we are protected somewhat from the high winds.  Should be tied up by 7:30 AM after which we will depart for our overnight stay at a hotel at Laguardia Airport before our flight tomorrow for Florida.  Tied up at 7:15 AM, temperature 72 F, total nautical miles cruised 4,547, wind 25 MPH, overcast. 

St Johns, Newfoundland

September 2, 2016

At Sea

Big activities today - ate three times, saw two lectures, one on the Northern Lights, other on St Johns, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Too tired for the entertainment so went to bed.  Iris fell in the night a couple of days ago trying to get a cramp out of her leg, hit the nightstand pretty hard with her back so she’s  sore and bruised.  Lucky she didn’t hit her head.  

September 3, 2016

St Johns, Newfoundland

Slept 9.5 hours last night.  Cruising is very tiring.  Up for coffee early.

Met our group of 8 near the door so we could go off as a group to meet our guide for today, Blair, who drove us all around St Johns beginning with views of the beautiful harbor of St Johns with the fishing boats and the oil platform supply boats.  

Then a drive to the eastern-most point of North America, Cape Spear with two light houses, one old one that has been refurbished and one in use today; 

visits to the bunkers, gun placements and munitions storage built by Canadian and US troops during WW II.  Maddox Cove is a bedroom community outside St Johns on the way to Petty Harbor (original it was Petit Harbor).  

Back closer to town we visited Signal Hill where Marconi received the first wireless transatlantic radio signal in 1901, great views of the city from here then a drive around the city including the university, the Catholic Cathedral (St John the Baptist), the Anglican Cathedral, St George Street (32 bars), Jelly Bean houses so named for the colors.  It was cold today and we had sprinkles but no real rain. The wind was tough on us all to the point that Iris had to buy a knitted wool hat, cute!  

Back on board we were really tired from our day so we had some supper in the Lido and Bob was in bed by 7 (claimed to be reading), at 8 the captain came over the intercom with word that due to hurricane Hermine we would be skipping Halifax and heading straight to New York in order to avoid the storm and stay west.  So early to bed.

September 4, 2016

At Sea!

Slept in, breakfast after 8 AM today, grumblings about missing Halifax.  We don’t know yet when we will arrive NYC but trying to plan how to make our flight on the 7th to Florida.  Waiting on word from our motorhome salesman that all is well with our new motorhome after the storm passed Florida.  Had a light lunch as tonight is formal and we’ve made reservations to eat in the main dining room so we can see Fauzi, our assistant waiter on the 2013 World Cruise.  Bob had already seen Fauzi in the Lido where he works from midnight to 5:30 AM.  He was really happy to finally see Iris, big hugs, and brought us up to date about his family.  After dinner we attended a Q&A session with the Location Guide trying to determine what we should do about getting to Laguardia airport.  Entertainment tonight was preceded by the Zuiderdam Chorale made up of passengers under the direction of the ship musical director.  They sang three numbers and then the show began with Rogerio Tutti playing piano and then Natalie Toro doing Broadway show numbers.  Set the clocks back another hour tonight so we are now on Eastern time (our bodies are not).  We were warned that some time in the night we will encounter heavier seas and that we should be cautious and use the handrails and batten down anything loose in our cabins.

Nanortalik, Greenland

September 1, 2016

Nanortalik is the southernmost town in Greenland with a population of 1,300.  Nanortalik means “place of bears” as polar bears are occasional guests in the area in late spring and early sinner as they arrive on ice flows.  Several have been shot in recent years.  Founded in 1797, 50 people lived here in 1805, by 1850 there were 165 residents.  The local wooden church (1916) was the entertainment for today with the Greenlandic choir performing songs in the native Inuit language.  

We visited the open air museum with several buildings including a sod house and buildings housing long boats and kayaks used in harvesting fish, seals and whales.  Today these foods are supplemented with sheep and cattle kept indoors in the winter and in grass fields in the summer.  This would have been a good day to be inside.as the temperature was 43 F but fortunately very little wind.  Our stay was from dropping anchor at 7 AM with departure at 1 PM.  This provided plenty of time to see Nanortalik.

The town symbol is three polar bears.

Kids turned out from school to see the funny cruise passengers.

We arrived back at the ship in time for lunch in the crowded Lido as everyone had to back on board by 12:30 PM.  Nap in the afternoon, Iris woke thinking she was getting a cold, to dinner in the Lido.  Iris stayed in, Bob went to the show, girl singer with Broadway tunes, to bed.

Greenland

August 30, 2016

At sea

Today promises to be a big day.  After leaving our coats to save seats at 4:44AM, by 8 AM we were in the Crow’s Nest as the ship entered the Prins Christian Sund Fjord of Greenland, this is in the southern end of Greenland consisting of many large and small islands with a complex network of narrow channels and fjords.  Cape Farewell is at the tip of Greenland and contains the weather station.  Sailing through this remote wonderland of steep granite mountains, glaciers, waterfalls and icebergs gives a view of this rugged landscape formed by carving glaciers during the ice age.  The sound is 36 miles long and at the narrowest point only 350 meters wide.  The water depth ranges from 600-900 meters.  We passed the village of Aappilattoq, home to 130 hardy souls whose only transport is small fishing boat or helicopter and whose food is mostly fish and seals.  Houses, the little store and the church were all prefabricated in Denmark and shipped to this location and reassembled.  Residents can only walk 1.2 miles in any direction from the village.  The steep vertical 900 meter mountain blocks the village from anywhere except the sea.

We had sandwiches for lunch in order to retain our good location in the Crow’s Nest but about 3 PM we had enough so we made our way back to the room for a little lie-down.  Then the usual drinks in the Ocean Bar and supper in the Lido.  Tonight the entertainment was a young pianist - nice.

Can’t say enough about the beauty of the scenery we encountered today, glaciers, waterfalls, mountains, fjords.  It was truly amazing or as the kids used to say “awesome”.

August 31, 2016

Qaqortoq, Greenland

Qaqortoq means “white” for the white colored granite cliffs.  Our ship anchored just off the village, founded in 1775 by the Norwegian trader, Anders Olsen, and we used the life boats for moving everyone from the ship to the village.  About a 10 minute ride.  Arriving at the pier we found a map of the town, 3,500 inhabitants, with a couple of variety stores with lots of stuff from China to sell the tourists.  

One interesting store had a bakery and sold rifles and ammo.

The town square (it’s round) contains the village fountain (1927).

One point of interest was the old church (1832) but there is also a new church.

We had intended to have lunch at the local hotel but the knats were so bad we decided to go back to the Zuiderdam for our lunch.

Also of interest are the stone sculptures carved by various artists in to the local cliffs.  Fish, ram’s head and faces of locals are featured.

This village is Greenland’s main trading post.  There is no road connecting to Qaqortoq and no airport.   Helicopters and ferries are used for public transport.  Interestingly no two towns in Greenland are connected by road.

Had a nice Indonesian lunch in the Lido followed by a nice nap in the room.

Entertainment tonight was Carlos Bonell playing classical Spanish guitar.   Very entertaining and claimed to have the distinction of recording with Paul McCartney on the only album that was a flop.  Nice evening.