Wanderung 25

Fall Follies

August - September 2011


 

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Sunday, September 6th, 2011: Davis Straight (West of Greenland)--Icebergs!

Bob:

Although this was another "Sea Day", we put in a pretty full day engaged in various activities. We first attended a port talk on Nuuk, and Nanortalik, Greenland, our next two stops. Nuuk, by the way, was called Godthab by the Danish in the Good Old Colonial Days and is still listed that way on some maps. The scenery in Greenland is beautiful but austere, and the population huddles around the coastline as the huge glacial ice sheet completely covers the interior. One piece of good news I learned was that the ice sheet, although melting more quickly, is actually growing in thickness as the precipitation in the form of snow is also falling more than it used to. At least we don't have to worry about an immediate meltdown of the icecap that would raise world sea levels by about 20 feet!!

The Innuit ("The People" in English) are a resilient folk, and have successfully lived in this extreme climate for at least several thousand years. The Norse Viking settlers, in contrast, were Johnny-come-latelys and their settlement only lasted a few hundred years.

We had to break off of the port talk early to amble aft and attend our Pop Choir rehearsal, and that was a shame as she was just getting to Nanortalik, which is located near the southern tip of Greenland, and it looked like the scenery there was very mountainous and quite beautiful. The Pop Choir rehearsal went well, however, and afterwards we signed up for an "open booking" on a future Princess cruise, which would give us some additional on-board credit in the event we book another Princess cruise within the next four years.

Monika:

Another at sea day meant another port lecture this time on Nuuk and Nanatorlik. Since we had been to Qaqartoq on our previous cruise, it sounded like fun going to two new ports. Nuuk was the capital of Greenland and also the biggest town. I was curious to see it. Nanartolik was close to some old Viking settlements and I had hopes that we would get to see them.

But first there was another Pop Choir practice. And I felt pretty good that some of the tunes came more naturally. The choreography was very simple and easy to incorporate.

Bob:

In the afternoon we caught the re-broadcast of the "ice" lecture that had been given the previous day by a special "ice pilot" captain that had joined our ship for sailing in Greenland waters. His talk was filled with beautiful and quite unique pictures of Greenland in all different seasons, but it focused on the problems that ice posed for navigation. I had no idea that there were three distinct kinds of ice include icebergs from the glaciers, ice floes drifting down from the polar ice cap, and "wind ice". Wind ice turned out to be ice caused by extreme cold temperatures and wind super-cooling the waters in the harbors and fjords so that any disturbance in the water would lead to a spontaneous and rapid formation of blocks of ice. During the day we saw several fine examples of icebergs drifting along, but fortunately Captain Nash avoided them all!

Monika:

But now we were in the Davis Straits between Greenland and Canada and time to go on deck to watch for icebergs. It is always eerie to see the ice giants drift by the boat, hoping our good captain would avoid all of them, while we were enjoying taking pictures of them.

Bob:

The ice pilot also confirmed that Greenland treats dogs quite differently above and below the Arctic Circle. Above the Arctic Circle they only allow working sled dogs and do not permit "pet" dogs. The sled dogs are treated like working animals and not as pets at all. Below the arctic circle, however, the sled dogs are not allowed and all dogs are "pet" dogs where the usual rules of humane treatment apply. I had not realized the two types of canines were actually kept physically separate, but that's what he implied.

One final tidbit of potentially useful information if you ever find yourself in Greenland, is that those colorful houses and buildings that you see, as we had seen in Qarqotoq, are actually color-coded for different functions! Buildings painted green have communications people living in them, blue-painted buildings house technical folks, red-painted buildings house traders, and yellow-painted buildings house medical facilities and staff. So if you want to buy groceries, look for a red building, but if your sick look for a yellow house! Good to know!

Monika:

We listened to the ice pilots talk on our TV, but couldn't help ourselves going outside ever now and then to take pictures.

Bob:

In the afternoon we attended a Ballroom Blitz dance class, this one given by Sam, the cruise director. She split the lesson to give us half an hour reviewing cha-cha, followed by a review of merengue, which we had skipped. When we returned to the cabin I wrote down some notes about the various moves on a "cheat sheet" and that turned out to be very useful later that evening because after dinner the ship's band was playing for a "Ballroom Blitz Dance Date" in the Fusion Lounge aft.

The advantage of a live band was that they could vary the tempo and did in fact slow up some of the tunes so that it was easier for us beginners to catch the rhythm and execute the dance steps (not that I'm clumsy or anything!!). The disadvantage of a live band was that whenever I danced us in front of the horn and trumpet players, the sound of them playing into my ear was so loud that I literally could not hold a coherent thought in my head, which precluded thinking about changes to our dance step! Still, it was a lot of fun and we, wild party animals that we are, stayed until the band stopped playing at 10:15 before retiring for the night.

Monika:

The afternoon held another dance class this time again with Sam, the cruise director, who reviewed the cha-cha and gave us a few more steps and then taught the Merengue, which in my mind is the most boring of dances. But both Sam and Val are doing a great job of teaching the basics, a few additional steps, and incorporating it all into an easy to remember choreography.



Copyright 2012 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt


 

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