August 17, 2023 Sea Day #11

  This morning was a cloudy day, south winds are 22 km/hour and temperature 12° C. Zuiderdam is travelling at 16 knots on the course SW 243.19° in the Denmark Strait. This was the eleventh Sea Day of this 35 day cruise & Day #27 overall. There was an extra hour of sleep since the clocks were set back an hour overnight. That will happen tonight too, so that when we reach Qaqortoq, Greenland, we will be on Greenland time.  Yesterday the captain mentioned that the two day cruise from Reykjavík to Qaqortoq will be about 870 nautical miles.

The dining room opened at 8 a.m. for breakfast. We joined Carol from Seattle, whom we had met before, then were joined by three ladies all probably over 80, Donna, from Colorado Springs, Marie from  B.C. and Sandra. They were pleasant table-mates. At 9 a.m., in the Rolling Stone Lounge, Tjalling’s guest was the Food and Beverage Director, Jonathon Werleman who grew up in Aruba, a Caribbean island off the coast of Venezuela.  He was also working on the Westerdam when we sailed on it in the spring. We had noticed wine and other supplies left on the pier when we left Rotterdam. Jonathon explained that they were from a container that was not delivered a month or so ago to another port and when inspected in Rotterdam it had signs of rodent droppings, therefore the pallets were refused. Jonathon mentioned that for Gala Night this evening the feature main course will be lobster. He also said that tomorrow at 3 p.m. in Lido Market, there will be a Cake Extravaganza.

    We walked on Deck 3 in a light drizzle until Tjalling‘s Qaqortoq port information presentation at 11 a.m. While walking we saw three spurt sprays from a whale, but not much of the whale. The sea swells are about 1.2 meters, quite manageable. The World Stage theatre was full to its 1,000 passanger capacity. Tjalling mentioned that tomorrow Zuiderdam will be entering Princ Christian Sund around Noon for the six hour transit.

   On the BBS news, the Yellowknife wild fires were a story. Looking at the weather report back home, there are air quality alerts of for wild fire smoke today.

   In today’s noon announcement by the captain, he advised that  depending upon ice conditions, there are plans are to stop near a glacier around 3 p.m. and then around 5 p.m. to stop by a village in the sound.  Neither was done on the passage two weeks ago. There were still 421 nautical miles to get to Qaqortoq. 

Ship’s location at 10:45 a.m. was North 62°49’27”  and West 29°09’20” almost 200 nautical miles from Iceland and 451 nautical miles from Qaqortoq.

   We had a quick lunch in Lido Market. At 1 p.m. in the World Stage Tom Goltz presented “Greenland & Beyond, The Many Incredible Lives of Fridtjof Nansen.” He was the first person to lead a team to cross over Greenland’s polar cap travelling doing it from east to west when all other previous attempts had been west to east and they all failed. The team members pulled 200 pound sleds on skis or snowshoes. It was followed by Tim and Daphne Terrell’s presentation about Qaqortoq, Greenland. They mentioned that Nordic artists carved either etchings in stone or sculptures from stone around the town in 1993, 1994 and 2000. There are 17 of them near the tender pier.

    The rest of the afternoon we read books from the ship’s library or had a nap.

    It was dressy attire for dinner tonight and a special Gala menus that included Surf and Turf. You could order an extra lobster tail for $7.50 more. 

    The evening show was The Alans: In Cahoots, an Evening of Magic and Mentalism. 

    At 9 p.m. the schedule read “Zuiderdam Ball: Join the officers & crew for a Dance, Chat and Fun on Music Walk in the Billboard onboard, Rolling Stone Lounge and Ocean Bar. We chose the Ocean Bar where the Third Avenue West band played. They are also the band on the main stage when needed. There was an officer who gave a toast and half a dozen officers that mingled for 10 minutes then left. There may have been a bit more activity in the larger Rolling Stone Lounge. The band played jazz version of tunes that we could Tango, Cha-cha and Rumba to. Each selection was about five minutes long. After the first few tunes, there was only us and another couple who dance at the Ballroom Dance Hour. We only stayed for one set as did half the audience of about 45.

  We didn’t walk a lot outside in the drizzle but managed to accumulate 9,889 steps.