August 20, 2023 Sea Day #13
Clocks were put back 30 minutes overnight to Newfoundland time.
The sun was shining this morning, although there was some thin streaks of cloud visible. This was Sea Day #13. The 8 a.m. temperature was 11° C with south south east winds at 29 km/hour with one and half metre swells. Zuiderdam was cruising at 18 knots on a mostly southerly course in the Labrador Sea travelling to the northern tip of Newfoundland.
After breakfast in the dining room we attended the Coffee with Tjalling event. His guests were the two Danish ice pilots. The reason that Nanortalik and Qaqortoq port dates were switched was because there was still ice in the fjords by Qaqortoq making it too dangerous for the single hull cruise ship. Usually by mid-July the ice has cleared, but not this year. It was not until 2016 that the Danish Government, which oversees Greenland, mandated ice pilots for cruise chips in and around Greenland.
When we stopped at our stateroom after the talk, our laundry had been returned. There is a 48 hour turn around for a regular laundry request. The shirts and T-shirts were all neatly folded, wrapped in white tissue paper and contained in a wicker basket. All we needed to do was remove the little laundry tags before putting the shirts away.
The 10 a.m. World Stage lecture by Tom Goltz was about John Cabot, England and the exploration of different countries in the late 1400s and 1500s. This was followed by Daphne Terrell’s presentation about Dr. Wilfred Grenfell and his contribution to health care. He was based in St. Anthony in the first third of the 20th century. On his first visit to Newfoundland, his ship arrived at St. John’s on July 8, 1892 as the Great Fire consumed the wooden building and ships at the wharfs. The Great Fire left one third of St. John’s population homeless. From then on Dr. Grenfell visited Newfoundland during the summer fishing season until 1899 when he decided to live in St. Anthony all year round. In 1901 the St. Anthony Hospital was built to increase medical services to Labrador and northern Newfoundland. He was the head of the hospital until the late 1910s when he handed the reins to Dr. Charles S. Curtis. Dr. Curtis dedicated his career to the hospital and the health of the people of the region. In 1904 Dr. Grenfell had the first orphanage built, then schools were introduced to communities in addition to nursing stations. In 1909 he married Anne and they built a three storey house, now a museum, on Tea House Hill in St. Anthony. Their three children were all born in St. Anthony. He was knighted for his work in Labrador and northern Newfoundland.
We started our walk on Deck 3 bundled up against a strong 35 km/hour wind, which blew spray from the waves onto the deck, giving our lips a salty taste. The sky was now cloudy. After one lap, we gave up and changed the plan to walk the corridors from Decks 1 to 9, by which time we had accumulated 6,000 steps. We had reached the Lido Deck and walked through the indoor pool area to the Lido Market for lunch. There had been a lineup for the dining room when we walked on Deck 2 and Lido was quite busy too. The indoor pool area was being prepared for the Zuiderdam Fair at 3 p.m.
In the captain’s noon announcement he mentioned that we were about halfway to St. Anthony. The sea swells were about two meters and the waves were about 1.5 meters high. Looking outside there was a light rain.
In the World Stage at 2 p.m. Tjalling’s port talk was about St. Anthony and St. John’s. The theatre was packed. He told us that Iceberg Alley was along the Labrador and eastern Newfoundland coasts so we might see more icebergs. He explained that the road between Rocky Harbour and St. Anthony is called the Viking route since it leads to the only known Viking settlement site in North America at L’anse aux Meadows. There are murals in at the Dr. Charles S. Curtis Hospital in St. Anthony by artist Jordi Bonet that should be seen.
At 3 p.m. on Deck 9 by the inside pool was Zuiderdam Fair, with carnival music and a few simple games like bean bag toss and spin the wheel. People lined up for whatever games they wanted to play and received tickets to take to the prize table and drop into a rotating draw drum. There were several dozen prizes including Effy Jewelry necklaces. Wait staff were walking around offering fresh Churros, bags of caramel popcorn, corn dogs and candied or chocolate dipped apples on a stick.
Tonight there were two sittings for the Seafood Boil in Lido Market. We had already had something similar on the excursion to Stokkseyri from Reykjavik. We joined Cee Kaye and Brad for dinner. Tonight’s show was the male quartet Cantaré.
Steps11,626
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