The day began very early for us and in a most unexpected and unwelcome way! At about 1:45 the emergency alarm went off throughout the ship. Ugh! Chuck got up to see what was going on, but I chose to stay in bed and wait for further information. Several people were poking their noses out of their staterooms, wondering the same thing. A few minutes later, the captain came over the PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. A fire alarm has gone off and we have detected some smoke. We are checking to find the source of the smoke. At this time there is no need for guests to do anything. We will keep you informed.” So we waited, and about five minutes later, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We have discovered a small fire near a dishwasher in the pantry of the crow’s nest, and the crew is working to put it out. We will keep you informed.” Great! Six hours from Greenland, somewhere in the North Atlantic, and there’s a fire on the ship! A few minutes later, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. The fire has been extinguished. Have a pleasant night.” (Yeah, right! Maybe we’ll be able to sleep, now that visions of lifeboats can be replaced by visions of sugarplums!) It certainly made us a little bleary-eyed when it was time to get up.
Despite the early morning emergency, we arrived at our next port right on schedule. Qaqortoq was a real surprise! We expected cold, damp weather, and we got marvelous sunshine and about 55°! Walking around in sweatshirts and jackets proved to be much warmer than we’d anticipated!
We arrived right on schedule, but since there were no shore excursions, we opted to have a good breakfast before tendering into town. Being 4-star mariners definitely has its perks – we were able to go in whenever we felt like going without having to get tickets and wait for a specific tender.
This area is very hilly, so everywhere we went we were walking either up- or downhill. The population of Qaqortoq is about 3500, and we are convinced that about ¼ of them are children under the age of 5! We must have encountered at least 40 children out for walks around town with adults. We assumed they must be day-care children, but we decided that they are definitely doing their part to increase the population of the village. We wondered if there were so many out because of the nice weather.
The houses are among the most colorful we’ve ever seen – bright reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and even a few very vivid purple ones! There were boats everywhere, and we were amazed at all the clotheslines out and loaded with clothes. We must have encountered almost as many forklifts driving around town as we did cars and trucks!
We really enjoyed wandering around the community and greeting so many friendly people. We visited a couple of small but very picturesque churches, popped into a few stores just to see what they had to offer, and we decided that we really didn’t need to buy things like refrigerators or washers and dryers! We also checked out what appeared to be an outdoor fish and meat market. As we’d expected, the meat was reindeer meat. No, thanks. Not interested in having Dasher or Dancer for dinner! They don’t have many tourists, so the only places we were able to find anything of interest to us was at the tourist information center.
Back on board the ship, we were able to get a few pictures of some medium-sized icebergs in the bay. We’re hoping to see more tomorrow, but the captain informed us that about 65% of the ships aren’t able to navigate through the Prince Christian Sund (Sound). They send out helicopters to make sure that it’s safe for a ship to venture in. After all, we do want to be able to venture back out again, and the helicopters make sure a ship isn’t ice-locked once it enters the sound.
We were up early to view all the icebergs surrounding the ship. We were making our way very slowly through the waters off the coast of Greenland because of all the ice. When the helicopter checked the water in Prince Christian Sound, they found it to be ice-locked, so we were unable to enter the sound. Despite that, we had beautiful views of the icy waters and unique and colorful ice formations. When seeing these ice floes, you are really able to see for yourself just how much ice appears below the surface of the water.
In addition to the ice, we saw numerous seals relaxing on the sheets of ice. As the ship approached, some seals held their ground, but most escaped into the icy waters and swam away. Some floes had a single seal, but we spotted some floes with as many as half a dozen seals sunning themselves. I’m sure glad that I don’t have to spend my life slithering around on ice in these frigid waters!
Sunday found us enjoying another sea day. The ship has really picked up speed and the seas are rocky, so I really started feeling the motion of the ocean! Fortunately some Coke and a Bonine did the trick, and I was able to go on with the day’s activities as planned. These included another excellent port lecture by Barbara about Invergordon/Inverness and Edinburgh. Despite having been there many times, we were interested in hearing her take on these locations. From there it was on to the 4-star Mariner Brunch. We always enjoy that as well as picking up a Delft tile. (I really like this year’s design, which incorporates King Neptune into it.) It was way too cold and windy to walk outside, so I opted to do a lap around each of the eight decks that are available to passengers. Then it was on to a lecture about pirates.
We are looking forward to our arrival in Reykjavik tomorrow.
Barb
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