New York, New York

Friday, September 16, 2016

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We were up with an alarm at 6am. There was a beautiful big orange-red full moon low on the horizon as we neared New York Harbor. We were both out on deck 13 before 6:45am as requested. It was a spectacular sail in. Under the Verrazano Narrows bridge and around the corner. There on the starboard side was Lower Manhattan and the new WTC Tower and on the port was the Statue of Liberty. Soon we were all waving to the NBC helicopter as it circled us. The water cannon/fireboat had a technical problem and was canceled. The captain spun the ship around we thought as we passed the Intrepid Museum and we thought he was going to back in so he’d be nose out for a quick getaway tomorrow, but we came in nose first anyway. We were having breakfast at the back of Lido at the time so we saw everything from the rear by then. We are docked on the port side and have a view of a parking lot. The starboard side has a view of the USS Intrepid.

Yesterday evening, we came back to what must be final bed gifts. There were 2 giant maps of our route, but they must have been printed earlier because they didn’t reflect our sail inside the Gulf of St. Lawrence inside Newfoundland passage that we actually took. But, the best was that they gave each of us a set of embroidered patches for every maiden call we made on this Inaugural North West Passage. I’m glad because I had only bought one of the Nunavut flag! Last night we went to the computer center and bought 2 VIP Passes at $60 to visit the 86^th Floor outdoor observatory without lines to The Empire State Building. Clay has wanted to do this since “Sleepless in Seattle” and neither of us had done it before. They didn’t have the lines fully populated but we saved a lot of line time anyway. We went around 2 or 3 full times and when we came down and out of the gift shop the woman in front of me for the bag x-ray and metal detector was still in line for the elevators to the 86^th floor! So, I guess money well spent.

I had found instructions for the subway to The Empire State Building and Clay said he could do that with his phone, but this morning he said he wanted to take a taxi and walk to the Guggenheim after on the way back to the ship. I shot that down since the Guggenheim is nowhere near. When I was out of the bathroom ready to go, he had checked and admitted I was right and it was a bad plan. Since we could overlook the Intrepid Museum next door to our dock on the starboard side, I had already suggested we go there since it was an easy walk and I thought that was what we’d do. He agreed as long as we walked back. I didn’t understand not using the subway, but he wasn’t having it. We had a nightmarish 20 minutes in a taxi. It was only saved by the fact that the guy knew he screwed up and at some point turned off the meter. That and the fact he had NBC on the TV in back and we got to see Serenity sailing in!

We got off the ship at about 9:30am. We got to the Empire State Building about 10am. We left about 11:30am. We started walking back and I was checking You Are Here and Here’s What’s Nearby street maps every block. Clay asked what I was looking for and I said to see if there is somewhere we should go that is in our path. Like what? Maybe lunch. Clay said he wanted a slice. I pointed out that Spinelli’s Pizza was around the next corner towards Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. He checked Google which did not have Spinelli’s. It had 2 Little Italy’s in the next block over. I turned the corner and we found Spinelli’s about 2 doors down. It was very good. 2 large pepperoni slices for $3.50 each. We enjoyed the experience and they had seats and fountain sodas. Refueled we walked on down 7^th Avenue towards Times Square. We walked through a fashion district walk of fame and found some public art devoted to sewing and textiles. We turned on 47^th and walked to the Hudson River through Hell’s Kitchen. WE got to the USS Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum at 12:34pm. We paid for General Admission plus the Space Shuttle. Clay made the decision what tickets. I had argued to go today because the Star Trek 50^th special exhibit was leaving the end of October and we won’t be back until Thanksgiving. But, we didn’t go in anyway. The good news is that under the space shuttle Enterprise was the Galileo shuttlecraft from the Star Trek TV series. A case of life imitating art imitating life…

We came back to Serenity about 3pm and went for ice ceam at Scoops which we ate reclining on the pool deck. A lot of people are leaving today. We saw Ron Chapple, the Cineflex operator, all packed up and leaving as we returned as well as a lot of crew coming and going. We’ll be going ourselves first thing tomorrow morning. We did some more packing this afternoon where the extent of Clay’s overpacking became evident. I have actually thrown a lot of my stuff away as we’ve gone because I packed knowing I was freeing space for things coming back and getting rid of old things or using things up. It seems even with the 2 big expandable bags expanded that we’ll have to pack the duffel bag I brought as an extra bag. Good news is that we are still well within our Amtrak luggage allowances and we should still be able to handle it all on our own. I say that. I hope that is true. We’ll find out tomorrow.

We have dinner at Prego tonight and no other plans for the evening beyond finishing up packing and putting our bags out between 8pm and 11pm. I’ll end here then. It has been a great trip. I’m so glad we decided to do it and that we cleared the waitlist and got to do it!

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Newport, Rhode Island

Thursday, September 15, 2016

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Clay went to the gym for the last time early this morning. He woke me up when he came back in the cabin after 7am. We were scheduled to arrive in Newport, RI until 10am so we had nowhere to be this morning. It was pretty calm sailing overnight. For some reason we came way out into the Atlantic after leaving Boston yesterday. We looped way out and then sailed pretty slowly straight back in to get to Newport. I forgot to mention earlier, maybe because I hadn’t seen it on a map, but when we sailed from Bar Harbor to Boston the body of water we crossed was the Gulf of Maine. I learned that from a shore birds exhibit at the aquarium in Boston yesterday. Now you know. So the sun was shining, some clouds, fairly calm seas and 63F this morning. The high in Newport today was forecast as 72F. That sounds about right.

Land was visible from about 7am until we anchored. We went to the main dining room after it opened at 8am. I wanted a final Eggs Benedict. Since we are asked to out on deck 12 & 13 forward tomorrow by 6:45am, breakfast may be hit or miss and the following day we have to be off by 8:10am. So, I figured this was my last chance at a nice calm breakfast. We watched most of the sail in from Bistro as I enjoyed a coffee. Don’t ask! We also needed to wait for cabin to be ready for the day. We went to the cabin after we thought we heard the anchor drop. We never saw a tender leave but after we were ready, we went down to the tender area. We waited a few moments before they let the 10 or so of us waiting off the ship onto the tender. After we loaded a couple of busloads of Panoramic Newport tours got on and we were off at 10:30am. According to the knitting instructor who sat in our section with a tour sign, we were on the first tender. We never heard any announcements being made about the ship clearing, or tenders leaving. It was 30 minutes past scheduled arrival time and we just showed up. Credit to Crystal again, because we remember what a nightmare tendering was last year here on Oceania. Honestly, we still can’t figure out how Oceania handled tendering so badly or shuttles in Boston so badly. Crystal has done it right all along and credit to them for it. Also, we have not seen on Crystal the preference given to ship’s tours departing the ship that we have seen on every ship we’ve ever been on before. Nicely done.

The tender ride lasted about 20 minutes. Newport must be the sailboat capital of the world. We must have been here on a Sunday last year because it seemed like all downtown was closed. Today was busy and bustling for the Newport Boat Show. It was like a completely different town. We walked around the historic old town center. We saw the outside only of Touro Synagogue, White Horse Tavern, Brick Market, Old Colony House, Courthouse,, Quaker Meeting House, Trinity Church and St. Mary Church. We had lunch on Bowens Wharf sitting outside watching the Boat Show. We had some ice cream and walked around some more before going back and walking right onto a tender before it departed. We were back aboard Serenity by 2pm and spent the next couple of hours doing some packing.

We both admit to way overpacking. We wound up doing laundry about every 7 days and didn’t need at least 30-50% of the clothes we each brought. It was colder everywhere than was normal for each place on the date we were there and still we didn’t use all the heavy clothes and accessories we brought. Something to think about. It is hard to leave at home anything you think you might want or need later, but you probably need less than you think.

We have dinner in the main dining room for the last time tonight. Our final dinner on the last night aboard in NYC is at Prego at 6pm. There is a special NYC New Year’s Eve style party in the Crystal Plaza this evening around 8 to 9pmm with a balloon drop. It is not a sit down event we are told. I can definitely pass on that. There is a Simon Bowman show in Galaxy Lounge tonight at 10:30pm. There is a classical pianist in Stardust. There are 2 popcorn movie showings. We may just go to bed early to be up and out for the Manhattan sail-in. I can hear the tenders being put away. The last one was scheduled back at 4:30pm. We should be sailing in a couple of minutes. We had a beautiful day today.

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Boston, Massachussetts

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

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Last night the video was a work in progress because it isn’t finished yet. Clay and I were both in it, though the videographer Kevin Freeny must have really worked to get us since we both avoid photographers. It is just a few seconds each and you’d have to know it was us. I have a parka hood up and am shot from the back and side but you can see my tremor. Clay has his camera over his face with a big lens and he is cut into footage of a fishing trip that saw whales when his whale watching cruise was changed to a fjord cruise. Maybe we won’t make the final cut. They will either deliver DVDs or flash drives to our homes one per booking number after the cruise. The big surprise of the evening was Edie Rodriguez onstage before and after the video. She held a drawing at each showing for the commemorative gold pendant they are taking orders for onboard. She also talked about a North East Passage cruise with the new polar expedition yacht Crystal have ordered. You have to wonder what it takes to bring her on in Bar Harbor and off in Boston. I mean ordinarily people can’t get on and off foreign-flagged ships between US ports. Anyway, she said she was jealous of us all and had to come when she could and this was when she could. She thanked us all for the success of this inaugural sailing. She said Crystal was going to put out a photobook through Amazon and other online outlets made up of shared photos by passengers because she had been so thrilled with what we were posting online through social and other media. She said all profits from sales would be given to the NWP communities as part of their voluntourism charity effort. It was a nice touch.

We both slept through the night and I didn’t think it was too rough. I woke up before 6:30am to find Clay out of the cabin as we were entering Boston Harbor. We docked at Black Falcon Terminal where we were with Oceania last year. What a difference! Well done Crystal! The complimentary shuttles were well handled. The ship was announced cleared at 8am. The shuttle schedule said the first one left at 9am. If that was true, then we were on it. Through laziness or disinterest or something, no one had a plan here. Our cabin wasn’t ready so I went into the computer room and used their much faster connection to do some research. It turned out that we had done a good chunk of the North part of the Freedom Trail when we did the US Park Ranger led free tour last year. We could try for the 30-person group on the South portion at either 10am or 1pm. So, we went back to the cabin and changed our clean up light to do not disturb and got ready for the day. It was almost 70F already with a forecast high of 82. I think it got hotter! We were first in line at 9:30am at Faneuil Hall when they started handing out tour tickets for 10am. It was a small group. The south side tour did not cover as much of interest and did not cover as much ground and we had a pretty poor ranger/guide. Last year the guy we got was much better. Today, the girl just read from the backs of her prop pages. In her defense, she didn’t have as much to show us as the North side. Just sayin’.

We walked past a place called Cheeseboy that had a S’mores Melt photo in the window. Nutella, marshmallow and graham crackers on cinnamon sugar bread. At 11:10am when the tour ended, we checked out the Boston Irish Famine Memorial and then crossed the street and shared one. It was very messy. Then we walked back to Quincy Market and to Durgin-Park for lunch after 11:30am. Through a lack of imagination and research we returned to Durgin-Park. I had my cornbread and Boston baked beans. Clay had a baker’s dozen of raw oysters and we shared a warm Indian pudding with vanilla ice cream. Clay had a red brick Samuel Adams beer. It was good and filling. Back out into the sun and heat we walked through Quincy Market to the New England Aquarium. It was about $25 each. That seemed high for a compact 4-story aquarium. We thought it would be cooler in there. It wasn’t and it was even more humid. It was fine though. They had 3 kinds of penguins. You could see the harbor seals from outside without even paying and they were in the shade with a breeze so that would be a bargain.

We walked past a dancing fountain that people were playing in and sat in the shade to watch for a bit. It was surrounded by Chinese zodiac head sculptures. Walked back to the shuttle bus about 2:30pm and took an almost full bus back to Serenity. I was so drained from the sun and humidity that I stripped off and took a nap. I slept a couple of hours and missed a big thunderstorm. I was glad we came back early since we hadn’t carried anything for rain as there was not a cloud in the sky all morning.

We had our last of 4 complimentary dinners in Silk Road. We had dishes we’d had before and it was all good even though I had to send my steak back to get it well done. That is the first time that has happened. We plan to go to the Billy Joel show tonight. It will be only about our 3^rd or 4^th time in the Galaxy Lounge at night.

A couple of other notes. Our cabin window was washed today! Hurray! Better late than never. I was sure they had to wash it before the next cruise began anyway. Tonight on our bed we found a North West Passage certificate on our bed for each of us, so there’s that. We traveled 7273 nautical miles. Still nothing for becoming bluenoses by crossing the Arctic Circle. Oh well. We also got a printed copy of the words to the song Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers. They have played that a lot on this cruise as our sailaway music otherwise they play Louis Armstrong’s It’s a Wonderful World.

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Bar Harbor, Maine

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

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Clay was up for the treadmill early. I was up before 7am when he came back. We traveled very slowly over the next 2 hours to reach our anchorage at Bar Harbor. I’d like to say it was a scenic sail in but it was really windy and the decks were very wet so either it had rained recently or the water had been rougher than I’d thought. Those things kept us from going outside until we stopped moving. The dadgum dirty windows kept us from enjoying what must have been a scenic sail in. I have never, ever been on any ship sailing in any sea, around any continent that has not even made a show of trying to clean windows. It is beyond all comprehension. Our cabin window is on the Promenade Deck so there is absolutely nothing keeping anyone from cleaning these windows every day. Yet ours has only been cleaned once, when Clay took one of our washcloths to it.

We had breakfast in Lido and then sat in Cove waiting for 9am and immigration clearance or our cabin being ready for the day. About 9am we went up to deck 13 forward and had a look around Bar Harbor. It was blue skies and sunshine and about 75F today. The last time we were on land for a day like this was in Denali! Finally, time to use that sunscreen I packed for the brutal Arctic sun which we never saw. Crystal was very unclear about the ship’s clearance by immigration. The letter we got assigning us Group 4 which caused us to reschedule our Oli’s Trolleys tour to Acadia National Park stated that once you cleared and had your keycard holepunched that you may proceed ashore. Reflections implied the entire ship had to be cleared before anyone could go ashore and this is how it works most of the time in most places. Clay asked at the desk and she agreed that the entire ship had to be cleared. The CD made one last call for anyone in the 14 or so groups he had called that had not done so to go to the Immigration spot they were assigned. Then he wished us a pleasant day ashore. This was right after 10:30am which would have made us too late for the 10:30am check in required for the 11am tour we originally booked. So it was good that we rescheduled that. Clay took this well-wishing to be an all cleared to disembark announcement, which I didn’t get at all. He didn’t say, everyone is now clear to go ashore and the tenders are running. I had been watching for tenders to go ashore until the nose of the ship swung around and I couldn’t see anymore. So, we don’t actually know how early we could have gotten ashore here. We were ashore by 10:45am and there was at least one tender ashore ahead of us as it was leaving as we arrived.

We walked directly through the building at the street end of the pier and found ourselves at the Oli’s Trolley Gift Shop where we got in line and went ahead and checked in. They gave us a map to show where we were and where to line up for the trolley by 12:45pm. We should have lined up earlier since it was a completely full trolley and we were in the back seat since we only arrived a couple of minutes before 12:45pm. They didn’t start boarding until right before 1pm though and it was hot standing in the sun. So, it was a tradeoff. First we toured a bit by foot. The ship’s port information had a few must sees.  One of them was St. Saviour’s Church, so we headed that way. It was said to have 10 or 12 Tiffany windows but there were a lot more windows than that and we couldn’t say which were Tiffany and which weren’t. We passed most of the other must sees which were art galleries. I use that term almost ironically because it was a lot of restaurants, bars, ice cream and souvenir shops selling art as well as best I could tell. Clay got a t-shirt. He wanted ice cream but didn’t have any because nothing seemed “Maine” enough to him. We sampled some maple popcorn but didn’t like it enough to buy any. We went in the public library and looked up because that was on an on-foot tour I had printed from online. It was nice but not that impressive. We walked though Village Green and we read a lot of historical markers. We saw Smokey the Bear on a fire house. We found the Acadia National Park Information Center there by Village Green and went in and got the NP stamps. I asked about patches and they said several shops in town sell official park souvenirs. Clay’s t-shirt had come from one. We had to walk back down through those shops again anyway. We saw all the free Island Explorer shuttle buses and the schedules were there. This probably would have been the thing to do but with limited time we wanted a guided tour. Ours was just too crowded and rushed to be enjoyable. The park service has guided bus tours at 10am and 2pm that may be better or may not and we’d have chosen that but we were afraid that neither time would work and they wouldn’t have. Oh well. It was a beautiful day anyway. We had lunch at a little coffee shop-type place on Main St. Clay wanted a lobster roll. The first place had a nice outdoor patio but their lobster roll was market price on the chalkboard. I think that struck Clay as pretentious and also he thought they’d be too slow and all I could order there was a big pretzel. We walked on to the Independent and went in. I could eat sandwich #2 on the board, a bacon, mozzarella and pesto panini for $9 and his lobster roll $16. That was good and we enjoyed them even though Clay saw them as low as $12.95. I was excited to see chocolate whoopie pies in a case for $3.50. I had to have that and ate part of it while I waited for my sandwich. Both sandwiches came with chips so they were a reasonable value. The whoopie pie was delish. As we walked back down, I found my Acadia Centennial patch and a maple whoopie pie at Pink Pastry Bakery. It was really good as we ate it on the trolley later. Our trolley tour went by the Hulls Cove Visitors’ Center, the sand bar to Bar Island, up Cadillac Mtn. (15-minute stop), a photo pause at Beaver Dam Pond, Thunder Hole (15-min. stop), around Otter Point for a photo pause, and lastly a 15-minute stop at Jordan Pond House before returning to town. We saw a magnificent Airedale Terrier here. We walked out to the middle of the sand bar to Bar Island and then back to the ship. A nice day in beautiful weather.

Oh, important lesson. Somehow, we had not learned until we arrived that Bar Harbor is named for the sand bar that you can walk or drive across at low tide to Bar Island in the harbor. Hence, Bar Harbor named for a sand bar.

We sailed on time while paging a missing passenger. Once again, hopefully that was a records error. Dinner was okay. We saw the boat come alongside to pick up the pilot. If we have Internet, I’ll post this now. We plan to go to the 8:30 pm preview screening of the expedition video. I might have something to say about that later or not.

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Sailing to Bar Harbor, Maine

Monday, September 12, 2016

Last night we gained another hour. That always makes a restful night’s sleep. Clay went to the gym around 6am and I slept until almost 7am. We went to Lido for breakfast. We went to Palm Court for me to be there for 9am Gentle Yoga. We saw an NCL ship heading north this morning. Today was the final Gentle Yoga class. On the 10am morning of Newport there will be a final combined yoga class. I don’t know if I’ll make that so this may have been the end for me. I went to final Chair Yoga at 10:15am. Clay went to the Captain’s Q&A at 11am and I watched on TV from the cabin. I was happy to hear John Stoll is considering the North East Passage! I suspect he was talking about doing it with the new polar-rated expedition yacht they have recently purchased. It may be too far out for me, but I can hope. 2017 is a repeat of this sailing on Serenity and 2018 they plan to do it with the new expedition yacht. So, I wouldn’t expect the North East Passage could be a possibility before 2018. It was interesting that they started planning for this when NYK (a Japanese company) owned Crystal and it got more feasible when Genting (a Chinese company) who are less fiscally conservative bought Crystal. Obviously, we consider this effort by Crystal a huge success. I hope that the majority, or everyone, onboard feels the same way.

We came out of the Cabot Strait about 7am and it got rockier. We are sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia and passed by Sydney and Halifax. The Captain said he didn’t want to visit those ports in order to get as far south and to fuel and supplies in reliable and affordable ports ASAP so we are sailing through and by the Canadian Maritimes without any stops. We’ve probably been to all of these ports anyway including ports like Corner Brook which passed yesterday so we’re fine with it but they are nice ports and would be a great contrast with the far Northern communities we visited earlier.

John Stoll just told us to expect a gala greeting when we reach the Statue of Liberty in NY harbor! It sounds like they are pulling out all the stops and expect NBC helicopter news coverage.

At noon, the captain made his final noon announcement. We had American Specialties at Lido buffet for lunch. We could just see Whitehead Island off Nova Scotia on the starboard side. When we got back to the cabin, we found every cabin had an envelope outside. In the category of best laid plans and all, the letter informed us that we were assigned to Group 4 for US Customs and Immigration clearance tomorrow starting at 9:30am. Clay went down and asked if we could be in the first group and the guy told him the groups were just suggestions to keep everyone from trying to be first in line, but to come as early as we felt we needed to get ashore on time. This has cluster cuss written all over it. Crystal has done an exemplary job thus far in efficiency in getting people on and off the ship so I guess we’ll see what happens. This is the only port where we booked an independent tour. We booked an 11am departure on Oli’s Trolley Acadia National Park tour. Unfortunately, we’ve been informed we must check in for it no later than 10:30am and they advise to allow 30 minutes to tender ashore. We’ll just cross our fingers and hope everything works out. Otherwise we’ll have wasted our money on this one. I am going to reply to their email reminder to let them know what our circumstances are and maybe they’ll just let us board at 11am and check us in then and there. We’ll see. We thought we were allowing a couple of hours when we booked thinking we anchored at 9am and not considering the US Immigration delays. This could go either way. Good news. Oli’s Trolleys let us move our booking to 1pm. We will have plenty of time to get there now.

Today was a pretty lazy last sea day. It was close to 70F today and the sun shone all day. Now if they’d just clean the windows it would be a clear day all around. About 5:30pm as we passed Halifax we saw Canadian Naval ships sailing nearby. That was interesting. Dinner at Prego was good. Tomorrow we’ll be back in the USA.

Sailing the Gulf of St. Lawrence

Sunday, September 11, 2016

The seas have calmed considerably when I wake up. I look out and we are nearing the Newfoundland coast. Around 8am, we turned slightly right and entered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. We can see land on both sides. Around 1pm, we saw what will probably be our last ice berg of the trip. Clay says our last iceberg ever! That’s a bit depressing. We went up to Lido for breakfast. We both went up to Palm Court after. We could see a lot of shipping traffic which has been absent for a long time. I did 9am gentle yoga. At 10am we both attended the Cineflex talk by our expedition operator, Ron Chapple. It was fascinating. All the camera equipment he has fitted on the ship is worth about $500, 000. He told us his company does all the aerial photography for the TV series Hawaii Five-O. After that I took my nearly completed needlepoint project to Miyako and at last she offered me another kit. Unfortunately, she did not, as promised, save me the tablet cover Clay had requested. She only had 3 choices left. I didn’t want to repeat the size I just finished. Choice 2 was a half-spectacles case, which I had not seen before, but which was a nice size. Choice 3 was what I had thought was the most coveted, the Crystal logo pillow top. I had wanted a larger project but I didn’t love this one, plus it wasn’t a complete kit like the others as it was just a canvas. You have to finish it to make it anything like a pillow or else maybe frame it. Miyako showed me that another guest had told her they were putting NWP 16 around the center of theirs. I liked that idea of making a souvenir of the cruise that could be framed or made into a pillow. She sold me. So, if finally got a new kit, but not the one I had been working towards. Oh well.

Today Serenity put on a Sunday Jazz Brunch. What made it a jazz brunch? There was live jazz playing in the Crystal Plaza where the buffet tables were set up. There wasn’t any Bananas Foster or anything necessarily food themed with the jazz motif. Clay went and took photos after they started serving at 11:30am. We waited until after noon and went to Lido. The captain made his noon announcement and said we’d be in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence until we exit at Cabot Strait early tomorrow morning. He says we’re about half way to Bar Harbor where he expects to easily reach on schedule.

We plan to lounge in the cabin until 4:30pm. We have our tickets to Magic Castle at Sea in Pulse Disco then. We don’t really know what to expect other than a 20-guest magic show. We’ll see.

The captain says they are refilling the swimming pool and heating the water. It has been open more than closed for this sailing actually. It has seen a surprising amount of use I think. It is probably about 57F outside, but cloudy and drizzling all day so far. Still the weather is improving for us! Around 3pm we spotted several whale blows. We still haven’t seen any whale parts other than those bowhead tops by Smoking Hills.

Back from Magic Castle at Sea. It was just a fairly standard magic show. I’m not sure why they keep the audience so small. It would have been as effective to me with twice as many in the audience, but then I really don’t like magic. I think it is too sneaky.

Dinner in the main dining room tonight. Nothing exciting on the menu for either of us. We plan to go to the popcorn movie tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be as calm as today was. Tomorrow is our final sea day. It is also our 2^nd and final formal night. We have reservations at Prego. We still have to dress up.

 

Crossing the Labrador Sea

Saturday, September 10, 2016

We did hit very rough seas in the Labrador Sea overnight and though the wind’s died down, still rough seas. Clay feels its calmer, me not so much. We went to iLuminate’s The Tourist. It is a seldom used entertainment staff show. We enjoyed it. It was a clever use of equipment choreography using a very dark theater and lighted suits. It had to be very difficult for the performers in the rolling conditions in the theater. It helped us stay up late to look for the aurora borealis. The CD came onstage at the end of the show to tell about viewing it the night before. He said he’d show some passenger photos on today’s morning show and he did. The skies were not clear last night. In fact, there was actually fog! So, that was the end of aurora possibilities for us this trip we’re told. Badly done Crystal for not finding it worthwhile putting aurora notices in the e-alert program. There is always someone on the bridge watching and so there is a person working for Crystal who knows when the aurora is visible. I realize that the e-alert system may have been a tool of EYOS Expeditions and not Crystal but come on, work together and make it happen if it is important to guests. They all knew it was important to us as there was enough talk about it. Anyway, lost opportunity. I am grateful that we had seen them before at least.

We ate breakfast and lunch in the main dining room. I have stayed low in the ship and mostly in the cabin. We had a lecture today from the diver who was aboard Shackleton until we left it. He showed video and photos of what we didn’t see during the North West Passage. It was cool. He has at least one more presentation. I have made a lot of progress on the needlepoint and am more hopeful that I can get the kit Clay has requested. Dinner in main dining room tonight is not expected to be very good for me based on the menu. I’m not too hungry so that’s OK. Tomorrow we have 4pm Magic Castle at Sea tickets. Really hoping it gets a lot calmer as we near Newfoundland. During the noon announcement, the captain said he planned to use an inside Newfoundland passage to get to Maine. The nav map looks like he is headed further west than the initial track shown, so we are hopeful for a calmer and more scenic next couple of days.

Nuuk, Greenland

Friday, September 9, 2015

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Clay was up early this morning for his small boat excursion. Too early as it turns out. Originally it was set for 7am as that was our scheduled docking time. They changed it to 6:50am. We were not docked til after 7am and Clay figures they left at least 45 minutes after the 6:50am time. I don’t know why they would make the tour times earlier since all but one of our tours has left later than posted. The one was not on time early, it left early thus mixing late comers for that tour with early arrivals from our time. It seems to be a universal truth that the weakest part of every cruise line is Destination Services or the Tour Desk. The Panoramic Nuuk we booked was 1pm on the ticket. A few days ago they notified us it had been moved to 12:20pm. Reflections today which is supposed to be the most up-to-date information had it back at 1pm. I went down to the Hollywood Theater to find an excursion person and she told me it is 12:20pm. I didn’t take Reflections with me so she didn’t believe me. Clay got mad when I told him because the assumption is that we’ll show up at 12:20pm and they won’t depart til after 1pm because of Reflections. He took the page out of Reflections and went down again. When he showed her Reflections she got on her radio and told someone and they said they would broadcast voice mail to all ticketed participants to be in the Stardust at 12:20pm. We’ll see. They have a regularly running shuttle bus here and in hindsight we should have saved our money here and not bought any tours. Clay’s tour which was clearly advertised as whale-watching months ago has been verbally re-advertised as a fjord cruise ever since the tour people started talking about it. The first we heard that was as we understood it long past the cancelation with refund date. It was $250. We are both on Panoramic Nuuk at 12:20pm or 1pm, however it happens. It will end before the ticketed time most likely unlike the morning tours because all aboard occurs before the time on the ticket. Obviously, whenever it departs we will get a truncated tour. We should have just done some research and assumed there would be a shuttle to and from the pier and planned our own day with a map. It would have saved us $100s and been a better use of our time. Live and learn.

I slept in til 8am. I got up to take a shower and there was no hot water and no cold water. I used the cold water from the sink to wet my bed head down and went to the Concierge as per Reflections request to arrange our departure time in NY. He already had us scheduled for 8:10am and that was perfect. I told him about the water and he said his screen had just gotten a message that they were turning it back on and I should try again in 10 minutes. I had to go sit an hour in Bistro for the cabin to be serviced now anyway. Clay was expected back at 9am but it was closer to 10am when he got back. He said it was a nice boat. It was too hot inside so he sat outside with the daughter of the father/daughter boat team and randy older expedition guide. He said it was a nice sunny scenic morning, but no whales or other animals. He said a woman on with the rest of the 10 passengers said she had been up late last night as it was very lively for one night with the zodiac drivers from Shackelton aboard for the night. She was thus out after midnight and saw the aurora! We have to gain an hour tonight so we will plan to either stay up or to set an alarm and go out. We are below the Arctic Circle now, but still pretty far north at 64 degrees 10’ N so with clear skies and a moderate chance of northern lights maybe we’ll get lucky. We’ll see.

We went to the library about 9:30am, a half hour after opening to get our Magic Castle at Sea tickets. This was announced in Reflections that you each have to go get your own ticket. The show evidently only seats 20 people at a time. We never heard of this before booking Crystal but people rave about it so when in Rome. Evidently it is based on magiccastle.com, a private club in Hollywood, CA. We got tickets for the 4pm show on day 2, September 11. We have 3 sea days starting tomorrow, before 4 days in US ports followed by disembarkation on day 2 in NYC.

At 10am or so we went up to the Late breakfast in Tastes. It was our brunch. Since we both had a bite early and we’ll be on tour during lunch.

Before I go for now, I want to comment about our cabin 7042. We are fine with it really and have been comfortable but we wouldn’t pick it again. One it is too far forward for our comfort. This is one of the few ships we’ve been on that didn’t have a distinct aft vibration when at speed. The rougher the seas and the higher the ship’s speed the more stable it feels the farther back you go. Good to know, but too late for us. We wouldn’t book forward of the mid ship elevators again if we returned. The other thing is 7042 is backward facing. Every other cabin would be. This means that in bed, sitting at the desk or on the loveseat that you are facing aft not forward. We just don’t like that. We’ve gotten used to it, but it wouldn’t be our first choice. We didn’t have a lot of choice when we cleared the waitlist but we also didn’t have the information about cabin configuration. We have been happy enough with Crystal and our time on Serenity that if the right itinerary came up we’d return. That said, we are probably more suited as Oceania cruisers where it isn’t so formal. As I’ve said we haven’t been to a tea or a show so much of what Crystal offers is just wasted on us.

Today we are docked on the starboard side and there is a rather unattractive dock to view. Our port side has a bunker ship alongside so not too scenic here either. We are pretty far from central Nuuk out here, so best bet was just to take a shuttle into town and spend the whole day.

It is 2:40pm and we’re back. It was actually worse than expected. We got a ride for an hour around the suburbs which are all new and a drive by the airport. We were dropped outside the National Museum. Our guide was not Danish or a Greenlander. He never said where he was from only that people moving here were making Nuuk a faster growing city than Beijing or Shanghai. He liked it here so he’s staying. If you can say he was speaking English, it would have to be at least his 3^rd language and we only understood about 3 of 10 words he said. He was laughing a lot though so I guess he thought it was funny. We did get a late start but it was before 1 and after 12:30pm. He gave us a farewell and thanks for visiting Nuuk speech as he told us to get off the bus, tour ends here. Our Crystal rep on the bus rushed after him saying the tour ends at the ship. It was our understanding as well, also that we’d paid for admission to the National Museum. I asked the local guide about the bus and he agreed the bus would be here in one hour if we didn’t want to just take any shuttle bus. I asked him about the National Museum and he agreed it was right there and we could go in if we wanted. We walked in and were asked to pay the 30DKK admission. We had the conversation that we’d already paid for admission for the tour and the ticket guy didn’t respond but asked again if we were going to buy tickets. I said no, I’m not going to pay twice. We walked around the water front and through a souvenir shop and back to find a waiting shuttle bus so we left. The people on the bus sitting behind us said they had a good guide, but she hadn’t told them the museum was included either. Like us they went in and were asked to pay so they did. After they got inside they found another group who told them their guide had told them to enter and tell the ticket guy they were on the ship’s tour and they wouldn’t be charged. I don’t think the ticket guy got that memo. Anyway, $109pp and a wasted day. That on top of Clay’s non-whalewatching $249 tour. We really messed up here in Nuuk. To add insult the woman behind me on the bus was sick and coughing all over me!

We set sail on time at 4pm. The captain came over the loudspeakers to warn us of strong north winds and heavy seas when we leave the harbor. He said we need to average 18.5 knots to make Bar Harbor on schedule. We made private touring plans in Bar Harbor, now I guess we’ll regret that because neither of us can remember hitting speeds anywhere near 18 knots in the past nearly a month. So we don’t think we have a chance of making it on schedule. Oh, well. Sometime before 5pm we got another voicemail from the excursions desk. They were letting us know they were refunding 50% of our tour price this afternoon. Either Crystal has professional quality complainers onboard for these rapid group refunds or else their tour escorts must really let them know the same feedback we would give if we could bear it. It doesn’t make overpriced, excursions that don’t meet the description in the first place OK but I guess once it’s done you can’t give people back anything other than money, not time.

Not looking forward to dinner or the next 3 days with the rocking we’re doing already! The skies are still pretty clear so we’ll probably try to go out late and look for an aurora. Clay said the woman said deck 13, so I guess he knows where the dark spot is that we need to go to see it if possible. Fingers crossed. Last chance for an aurora according to Tim Soper last night.

We spent the afternoon watching a movie about 2 old men taking a driving trip around Iceland. Clay has a new item on his to do list. Iceland is next to Greenland. Greenland is the world’s largest island. It is considered part of Europe economically and part of North America geologically. I thought a lot of the land around Nuuk resembled the land in parts of the Canadian Maritimes, like around Peggy’s Cove. I’ll post this now if I can.

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Sisimiut, Greenland

Thursday, September 8, 2016

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Clay slept from about 7:30pm last night to almost 7am this morning! I was rudely awakened at 6:50am or so by a monstrous lower leg muscle cramp! When it was over I fell back into bed and Clay proceeded to tell me how rough the sailing had been and he hadn’t slept all night. He sure did lay quietly for almost 12 hours then! It has been an exhausting trip somehow. The yoga teacher was talking about it. She thought it was the 6 lost hours of sleep over the past couple of weeks coupled with the low gray skies and though we’ve seen the sun, it hasn’t really been shining on us when we’ve been able to be out. We’ve just had a lot of clouds and precipitation and although we’ve been weeks above the Arctic Circle, no aurora borealis because of low clouds and precipitation. With all the lights on the ship, I don’t know if you could see the aurora anyway. That has really been the only disappointment and it is weather. You get what you get.

We were still moving slowly when I looked out. The TV’s nav map was broken. The bow cam showed it was 38F and the Shackleton was before us in a cove surrounded by a small town of colorful houses arrayed up the hillsides. It was not raining, but rain was forecast all morning with an expected 10F or so degree temperature rise. It was partly cloudy with some low clouds. The town of Sisimiut has a crooked triangular peak towering over it and in the misty clouds it looked like Whoville from Dr. Seuss. The clouds mostly cleared up over the course of the day and more blue sky and sunshine and the weird mood went away.

We had been advised during the briefing that we should check to tender schedule and try to avoid tour times since they take precedence. Clay went and checked and we were shooting for 10 to 11am or noon to 1pm. Last tender back is 5pm and we sail away at 6pm. We went to breakfast in the main dining room a little after 8am. I had banana buckwheat pancakes. That was new. I don’t think I like buckwheat. It looked like tiny buckshot in my pancakes. After we went up to Palm Court and used the big binoculars to scout the lay of the land and tenders and shuttle buses. Since it seemed to be clearing and not raining, we decided to head on ashore if we could get in the cabin. Peace was just finishing up so we got our teeth brushed, got suited up for the cold and possibly the rain and headed out before 10am. We took the mid-ship elevators directly down to deck 4 and walked right out onto a waiting tender with about 15 people who were already there. That seemed to be too good to be true and it was as they were just holding that tender for a soon to follow tour group! It was still a very short wait and they all got off together too. The tiny harbor was well sheltered. The tendering was fine. The going ashore from the tender was a little tricky. Tim Soper told us they had leased some kind of floating barge to act as a tender platform ashore and they had. It was fine but there was a very rotten, flimsy, bent looking wooden ramp/footbridge tied up between the barge and the shore that they had to limit 1 to 3 people at a time crossing. It still swayed and bent and flexed when I was alone on it! That slowed things down both loading and unloading, but it was fine. The shuttle bus was welcome because while it was a short walk between things, the uphill grade was steep. We walked back down. There was a shuttle bus waiting when we got ashore so we boarded. It didn’t leave until the next tender had unloaded. We just waited. The first stop was the Sisimiut Museum. We had originally booked a complimentary community visit here that was cancelled due to a lack of transportation. The tour department instead issued us free museum tickets. Since we were there, we got off. The 2^nd shuttle stop was a shopping area/Post Office. I had already dropped Mom’s post card at Serenity reception not realizing we’d be at a Post Office later. Oh, well. The first thing I had seen on the Sisimiut City Map they were handing out ashore was a store called Qiviut. This is the Inuit word for yarn made from musk ox undercoat. We have seen it everywhere since Nome but not at Pond Inlet. We knew it was expensive and hadn’t seen a lot of yarn for sale but high priced knitted goods. The briefing last night told us to look for it as it would be a good product to buy here since a lot of what they make here we can’t bring into the US. It turned out that the Qiviut store was on the grounds of the cluster of buildings that made up the museum. We heard the organist playing in the old church and saw a mask dance demonstration as well as a peat house and the oldest kit house from Denmark in Greenland (I think that is right.). There was a whole room dedicated to the polar bear that came to Sisimiut in 2014 and hung around the airport, when he headed for town he was killed. It was evidently a pretty big deal and his skull was there. We bought what we were told was enough Qiviut wool to knit two neck gaiters. The yarn was at 65 Euros for each but the knitted gaiters were 169 Euros, so I thought we were saving money. Clay considers it the most extravagant yarn purchase ever. Both. Clay also asked and got t-shirts put out on the porch there. He bought one.  I don’t know what part of the museum the building across was but they put out vanilla crème and chocolate crème filled doughnuts for us. The expedition guide for that corner asked us to help ourselves. Clay had a vanilla half (they were cut in half) and I passed. After we came by on the way out, I had a chocolate. As the guide was telling how and where to go now, she pointed out that the Senior Center across the street had just put out a sign inviting us to visit for music, arts & crafts and snacks. She felt bad that they were putting this on for us and no one was going over. Can’t have that. We carefully crossed the street. An older man sitting at a picnic table outside saw us cross and read the sign and he ran up and gestured us to the back door. It was a mud room/cloak room. We tried to take off our coats and shoes. He practically dragged me on through the next 2 rooms and past the kitchen into a room filled with elderly Greenlanders. One man was playing music. There were women sewing, cutting out fur pieces, beading and I don’t know what else. It looked like they were trying to sell what they were making. There was one woman who spoke some English and she struggled to tell us about what they were doing and to feed us Greenlandic cakes and coffee and tea. She couldn’t say no. We ate a buttered slice each. Then she pointed out the round slices and said they were made with eggs (ours hadn’t been) and her friend sitting at the table had made those round ones. We didn’t go back for seconds to their disappointment but it was too much! Clay drank a cup of tea and I a cup of strong coffee mostly because we didn’t get a bottle of water to take ashore and we were thirsty. We wanted to make a contribution to defray their costs and help their center. Clay was looking for something like a donation box and a woman wearing a seal skin came up to him and he handed her our bag of leftover DKK. She seemed surprised but took it. She probably didn’t even realize what he had handed her until we were gone. He had managed to leave his coat in the cloakroom and a cheer went up in the room we had left. We still aren’t sure if they were cheering because we had visited or because we had left! As we left another shuttle bus was coming to a stop across the street. We went over and got on for stop 2.

We didn’t find anything in the grocery store, sporting goods store or fish market except fish smells. We didn’t go in the Post Office but starting walking back down to the harbor. I found a unique long sleeve knit top with silhouettes all over it of ulu knives, ice bear heads, whale tails and what I was told is an old Greenlandic woman’s head. I thought it was extravagant. Clay said it was about $65. I broke my rule about new clothes and I’m wearing it. I like it. I found it in the very back corner of a store called Anuni. They had some unique locally themed fabric patterns in coats, pants, scarves, and tops as well as some women’s t-shirts. The problem was that the store was well back from the road even though it was probably as close to the 2^nd shuttle stop as the Post Office. It was on the other side of the road and we walked past it to the cemetery before turning around and seeing the side porch of it with a rack of shirts and a stack of shoe boxes. We walked back and even then, the stuff visitors would be looking for was buried back in the farthest corner from the door. I got lucky. We walked on back downhill carefully since it was a surprisingly busy street for a town of under 6000 and there were no sidewalks. We went in a bookstore/office & art supply store and one other store along the way selling Greenlandic jewelry. There were some nice gold or silver local design pendants but I didn’t need anything like that. We stopped at the boat house of the museum that we had missed earlier. We turned before the harbor and walked along the water way. We went in the Artists’ Workshop and the Spar store. We checked out the qajaq (kayak!) club. We walked back and got on the next tender back to Serenity. The sun was shining, there were blue skies visible and the Serenity was surrounded by hundreds of birds.

We went to lunch at Tastes to close them down at 2:30pm. As I type these notes up and consulting the local map we got ashore, it seems we missed a great photo opportunity across the bridge from the town to the airport. It shows a statue on a point of land and has a photo of a statue of a fisherman in front of a ship in the cove. It looks like it was taken on the other side of where the Shackleton is sitting. If we had noticed it before we’d have made a point of walking over there! Of course, the map also shows there is a statue at the point of land where we visited the qajaq club and we didn’t find a statue there, of course we weren’t looking for one so maybe it was there and we missed it.

We went to the last expedition recap & briefing at 5pm. That was a bit sad. The end really is in sight. We met a new member who has been diving and operating an ROV from Shackleton all during the trip! He is going to give a presentation sometime on the way to New York and that is exciting. At 5:30pm, they asked everyone to go to decks 12 & 13 forward to have a champagne toast to Shackleton’s departure. Shackleton had moved beside and nose to us as we sailed away and it stayed behind! It was rather anticlimactic.

Dinner was 6pm at the main dining room. We didn’t like anything on the menu and both ordered from the mainstays section. Clay had ribeye steak which he wasn’t wild about and I had a surprisingly moist chicken breast. We had another 40+ minute wait for our meal. Clay says he is going to ask not to be seated there anymore. It is too bad.

Tomorrow we are in Nuuk. (Say Nuke.) It is the capitol of Greenland. Today we got the message that our excursions’ departures had all been moved forward by about 15 minutes. It won’t matter that much and they probably won’t leave early anyway since every one has been late. Anyway. Clay has an early start and at the briefing they warned that this $250 excursion should be properly name fjord cruise and not whale watching cruise. Exactly what Clay has been saying as he worried about this since we boarded Serenity. But he never did look up the cancelation deadline, so he’s going now. At 12:20pm to 4pm or so, we have Panoramic Nuuk together.

We are sailing south along the West coast of Greenland again and being on the port side we have been in view of the coast. During the day today, we mostly had a view out to sea.

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Missed Ilulissat

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

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We were up at 6am today. Clay skipped his morning treadmill time. We were scheduled to sail into Disko Bay about 6am and it is supposed to be an impressive place to sail in and out of. Since we are in Silk Road without open windows at 6pm, our sail away time, we were eager to see it this morning. The low clouds/visibility were with us again and besides icebergs everywhere we really couldn’t see much. We went up to Lido for a quick breakfast. It is 37F and raining. The predicted high is 40F or 41F and it should continue raining all day. We are ticketed for a complimentary community visit at 8am and a Scenic Walk to Sermermiut at 12:30pm. We are contemplating staying ashore if the tour people tell us it is possible. We got back to the cabin to gear up for zodiacs and rain all day with a lot of walking in the cold and wet. We were watching the nav map and bow cam and it looked like we were making loops in the bay at about 4knots. We were not slowing down. According to Reflections, tours should have begun departing at 7:20am. Clearly that was not happening. Clay decided to go downstairs and see what was going on in Stardust, our meeting point. He showed our 2 sets of tickets to the woman manning the door and she told him that all tours except Icefjord Scenic Cruising are canceled. He came back and told me if I was quick that I could change and make the 8am combined yoga class. Or I could do laundry today. I was exasperated after getting ready quickly and early in all those layers so I just sat on the bed. He asked what I was doing and I told him I was waiting to hear from the captain. He told me there is a no public announcement policy. I agreed Crystal has a written no announcement policy, but Captain Birger doesn’t, he makes plenty of announcements. Sure enough at 8:04am he came on the speakers. He said that there was a pretty solid wall of ice blocking the entrance to the harbor. He said Shackleton had been monitoring the ice overnight here and thought it was building up due to an unexpected wind and advised against going in as we might not be able to get out. He said he had still searched the ice wall himself for the past hour trying to find a crack that could be used to tender us in and out but hadn’t found one and also had to consider that he had to get us back out by day’s end. He said they had canceled all excursions except Icefjord Scenic Cruising as they had been able to arrange for the local boats that were scheduled to do it to come out and pick up at our tender dock instead of in town at the dock. He said they had arranged a ferry boat or something like it locally to come out and pick up all the overnight and overland excursion guests. He said once he found the right spot that he would put the ship into dynamic positioning mode and we would spend the day here. They spent the next 2 or more hours precariously trying to get passengers over into various local boats with and without success. They dropped one of our lifeboats/tenders and although there was still a lot of bouncing they matched up at a level and they then took passengers in our tender to a ferry. I watched a bit of terrifying passenger transfer from tender to ferry as the boats bobbed up and down, not in sync! I followed that ferry until it disappeared at the harbor ice wall. The captain said he had us to within 7 miles of either the ice wall or the dock in harbor, I’m not sure which. We are at 69 degrees 12.81N and 51 degrees 27.96’ W if that helps. During that 2 + hours, they got the Cineflex up and running, put on a slate of 3 lectures and added art, knitting, needlepoint and bridge. They delivered an updated daily schedule to the cabins. At about 11am, another ship wide announcement was made that they could not transfer passengers to local boats and had decided to run all the Shackelton’s zodiacs from the ship instead for scenic ice cruising. I can see them now. They are not going to the icefjord. They are cruising here in Disko Bay up to the ice wall across the harbor. That is not like seeing the Jakobshavn Glacier calving. It is one of the most active tidewater glaciers in the world, so this is hardly a fair substitute for those who paid to cruise the icefjord. I am disappointed but they are bobbing around in the rain on zodiacs, paying extra to see what I can see from here. Hopefully, they explained to each ticketed tour participant what they were substituting and gave them an option of being refunded instead. I know the local fleet must be really unhappy. They had enough boats out here around the ship this morning that you’d have thought they emptied the harbor to answer the call to come out and shuttle Serenity’s passenger back and forth to the icefjord. I assume that they’ll have to be paid something for coming out whether they get paid in full when it didn’t work out or not. Clay went to use the treadmill and I have done the laundry for what should be the last time this trip.

We went up to Lido for lunch as it offers the best views and best selection. You can order from Trident or Tastes to eat in Lido which increases the selection. So from up there and Palm Court and the detailed navigation map outside Palm Court, we have a better idea what we’re seeing. It does look as if we are 7 miles offshore not from the ice wall. The other thing is that we might be well outside the entrance to Ilulissat harbor and closer to the point of land that separates it from the icefjord of Jakobshavn Glacier. The ice wall appears on the map and it extends across both bodies of water. That said the zodiacs aren’t rounding that corner. They are loaded chockfull and run out to the wall, around and among the bergs and down or up the wall a mile or less and then back to the ship. Port side drew the view again today as we are facing the view and the tender action. Starboard side today got open water and a random distant iceberg. It was 37F this morning and predicted to warm to 40 or 41, but it has dropped to 34F by 1pm. It is still raining, the cloud cover is heavier and lower and the chop on the bay has increased as the day has gone on. It is 1:15pm and the captain has just come on loudspeakers again and announced that due to deteriorating weather and sea conditions he has canceled all further zodiac activity. He said once the zodiacs out get unloaded and back on Shackleton that we will depart early for our next port and hope for better luck next time. The captain said that the port side should have a view of the mouth of the icefjord for the next 15 to 20 minutes as we sail south down the coast.

Well, we have 2 more ports in Greenland. Hopefully we’ll get to set foot on land somewhere in Greenland.  Whale blows were spotted just beyond the icefjord mouth. We were on our way south by 3pm. Thankfully although Disko Bay was unexpectedly rough, when we arrived back out in Davis Strait it was calm. We had the 5pm recap & briefing where they described all I have written up here with some additional details and explanations. We heard some more about Sissimiut and learned that we will depart from the Shackleton there. The expedition portion of our North West Passage cruise will end in Sissimiut. We are told we can expect to go ashore there even though the local tour operator has canceled a hike due to snow that accumulated there recently. Fingers crossed.

Dinner is shortly in Silk Road and hopefully it will be as good as last time. It was. Bed gift when we got back to the cabin was ironic. A postcard of the colorful houses of Greenland, which we haven't seen. On the plus side, it had 15DKK postage attached, so I'll mail it to Mom. It made me wonder again though about Crystal not printing and delivering milestone certificates. Like crossing the Arctic Circle on a ship makes you a Blue Nose. What about completing the North West Passage? I guess it is not exclusive enough. Crystal's motto is "All exclusive" and that just rankles. Forgive me but it is written on my keycard right by my name and photo like it has something to do with me or that I approve of the concept even. Anyway. Hoping for a better day tomorrow and first visit to Greenland, a new country for us.

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Cruising to Greenland

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

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We have been rocking and lurching and bouncing since yesterday afternoon. We lost an hour last night. Before Clay came back in this morning, I was already awake. I was woken by Crystal’s binoculars falling off the shelf by the desk near the foot of the bed being tossed off onto my feet and then the floor. It is 37F outside and mostly cloudy all day with little change from start to finish. We’ve seen tons of icebergs. I saw a fishing boat nearby during chair yoga. I stayed low in the ship all day. So 3 meals in the main dining room and I skipped gentle yoga in Palm Court and went to Chair Yoga in Stardust. Maria came in to teach from upstairs and said they had seen a gigantic sperm whale surface and dive with its huge tail straight up in the air on the big TV screens behind her. I’ve spent hours staring at those screens without seeing anything remarkable! The day I skip, I miss something new! So, I have made a lot of progress on the needlepoint. Tomorrow starts a 3-day stretch in Greenland. Should be a busy time! Hopefully all our sailing will be after dinner for next 2 nights anyway!

There was nothing on the dinner menu that either of us wanted tonight. Clay was agonizing over whether to try the roast suckling pig or the lamb curry. He really didn’t want to have the curry, it was causing him worry. Ha! I didn’t want to order the turf without the surf but was considering it. In the end, we were seated with a new to us waiter, Vinod. Who was our best server yet. Clay ordered the lamb curry and loved it. He ordered the yuzu trifle for dessert and loved it. I decided to ask if they could serve the pasta without crabmeat in the sauce and they could and I really liked it. So, we ended the miserable day on a high note even though the seas have not calmed and we’ve heard it should rain all day tomorrow! They won’t find out before we arrive at the harbor off Disko Bay what ice conditions are and if we can tender or have to zodiac tender. I guess at this point with the rain, it won’t matter since we’ll have on waterproof pants anyway.

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Cruising Sam Ford Fjord on Baffin Island

Monday, September 5, 2016

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We had a short night last night with the time change and we lose another hour tonight. So, while Clay was still in the gym at 5am and he didn’t come back until almost 7:30am, I was still sleeping. It had been a little rough for the past few hours cruising south in Baffin Bay along the coast on the starboard side. It was rough enough that I was having some trouble getting up and around and changed my answer to Clay’s question yesterday of whether I still felt I could do next spring’s waitlisted cruise around Australia with Oceania. It may not be up to us to decide as we haven’t been offered a cabin yet. Anyway, around 8am we started turning into Sam Ford Fjord and it got a lot calmer. As we reached Walker Arm around 10am, we found Le Boreal ahead of us! Le Boreal is the ship we took to Antarctica, so we’re fond of her. She was disabled and nearly sunk off the Falklands a year or so ago. So while we knew she did NWP cruises, we weren’t aware that she had been brought back into service and it was a happy surprise to see her speeding along our fjord. The captain announced where we were and what we were doing around 9:30am. He said this was a particularly scenic fjord and had clifftops at over a mile high. You could realize the enormous scale of things when we saw Le Boreal. Prior to that size check, it had seemed we were in pretty tight quarters. Of course, we are a big ship and it actually was tight quarters for us as many places you couldn’t see water beyond the ship before seeing a rock or scree face. There were glaciers, tidewater glaciers, hanging glaciers, etc. The cloud deck was low and it was raining hard all morning. It was about 35-37F all morning, so cold but nowhere near freezing. It was all clouds and rain. As we reached the furthest point we could travel in, there were some brief breaks in the clouds and a little light and blue patches of sky visible as we did a 180 degree turn, though we both swore he spun in a complete circle once before coming back around and heading back out the way we came in. The clouds were even lower and heavier on the way back out. The captain came on at noon and apologized that the weather hadn’t cooperated, but that as we went back by the next bend to watch the starboard side for a lone polar bear that he had made eye contact with on the way in. Now that is the side that Clay and I and mostly the Cineflex had been watching on the way in and we hadn’t seen a polar bear. In any event, we checked the now starboard side. Cineflex focused for a long time on a little whitish blob on the hillside and we were told later that was the polar bear. I guess that emphasizes the sheer size of things again. The captain said he thought we were leaving polar bear areas and that would be our last one. I guess Greenland has no polar bears? I guess Baffin Island has no musk ox? They have been seen most every day since Nome but we found no Qivuit for sale in Pond Inlet and no musk ox have been spotted. They seemed ubiquitous before but the people of Pond Inlet seemed more focused on seals and narwhal, neither of which we saw there. Evidently the people who went out on zodiac or fast boat among other excursions yesterday saw animals in addition to birds as the wildlife checklist had them listed for yesterday.

After breakfast and yoga this morning, there was a sale of RRS Shackleton souvenirs in Crystal Plaza. It was well attended and possibly better stocked than the Inaugural NWP Cruise souvenir sale. Clay got a $32 t-shirt. I decided to pass. They had a lot of jackets, polo shirts and I don’t know what a long sleeved, cotton-collared polo-type shirt is called, but they had those and fleece hoodies. There were no prices on anything, but as I was handling a long sleeved shirt I heard a price come back to a woman near me and it was over $100. I don’t know what she had asked about, but I figured I didn’t need anything priceless on that table and gave it up. There were long lines to pay again.

They are having a special Mozart tea in Palm Court this afternoon. We haven’t attended any tea on Serenity so have no idea if the daily event is special or how this differs. We had tacos and goulash at the Lido for lunch. There is for me a really disgusting sounding menu in the dining room tonight. We hope to try to get our remaining entitled reservations made between 5 and 6pm today and we’ll hope one can be tonight.

There is no Internet today. I will assume it is because of the close high mountains and that as we cross Davis Strait this afternoon and tonight and all day tomorrow that it will return. We are about 450nm from Illulissat, Greenland. We have a complimentary community visit scheduled there for 8am and a paid excursion at 12:30pm for a Scenic Walk to Sermermiut for $178 for both. We have watched on TV the destination/excursion talk on Illulissat and they don’t know whether we will dock or anchor and tender. The general feeling is that it won’t matter for excursions somehow. They have been requiring a ticket of some kind to get a ride off this ship since Nome. I don’t see how that won’t change if we are not docked. Anyway, I guess they think whether we dock and walk off, or tender to a dock that both docks will be in general proximity. I guess from that perspective maybe it won’t matter. We’ll see. I’d hate to have to tender twice!

The ride was rough once we got back into open water this afternoon. So, after lunch at Lido we spent the afternoon in the cabin. We watched a string of icebergs for a while with a random sailboat thrown in! They were having a rough day! Clay went to the library and checked out “Aloha” which he didn’t remember seeing in the theater. He managed to watch it all today. I am still working hard on the cross stitch to try to get the kit Clay picked out before it is too late. I am down to almost only white left to do, but it is a big section. We’ll see. Clay went out again after 5pm to try to get the rest of our specialty restaurant reservations. Success! 4 reservations made at 6pm at Prego and Silk Road. I don’t know why they had to make it so hard and just couldn’t do this one of the first 2 times we asked.

There was nothing we really wanted from the dinner menu tonight but Clay couldn’t get us in another restaurant tonight so off we went. I had the braised oxtail and Clay had perch. Both were good, probably better than we expected. Also service returned to norm tonight after our 2-night absence. We can only hope it holds. I jokingly told the waiter who wondered where we’d been that we had better service in one restaurant and worse service in the other. Both waiters wondered what I had to say about them, but I wouldn’t say. The senior waiter decided he has 12 days to become my number one waiter. Hopefully he will actually earn that spot! We didn’t break it to him that we had 4 nights of reservations elsewhere!

Clay got Internet after dinner when it has been unavailable all day so I’ll try to get this posted now. We’ve already turned the clocks forward an hour. We should now be on Greenland time.

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Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada

Sunday, September 4, 2016

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We had a quiet night last night anchored off Pond Inlet in Eclipse Bay. Yesterday’s snow accumulated in Pond Inlet. Once ashore we were told it was their first snow announcing the end of summer. We had to get up early since our complimentary community visit tickets were timed for the first departure at 8:30am. We went to Lido for a 7am breakfast. I had strawberry pancakes as a concession to Sunday Breakfast. They would have been better served hot.

I don’t know if I said it, but at some point since we’ve been in Canada, one night we were given by Crystal a nice post card with postage attached. Clay mailed it to Warner & Vivian since he’d emailed to see how the trip was going. Last night we got another more generic stock photo post card without postage!

Pond Inlet is a small community of about 1600 set on a bay, on a hill overlooking Eclipse Bay and Bylot Island. It is on the northern end of Baffin Island and is at 72 degrees 41.99’N 78 degrees 00.59’W. It is the largest community this far north in Canada. It recently opened the northernmost Tim Horton’s in Canada. We missed it because it is attached to the Northern Store and it was on the other side of town and uphill. We had hiked about 400 yards up a sandy, stony beach upon arrival. It was 32F and good sized swells for the zodiac to shore. On the return in the afternoon, the wind had died down and the swells were gone so the landing area was right below the road. When we landed it was deep, especially when the swells came in. After I swung my legs over, I noticed that the Filipino seaman on the sea side of me was in up to his waist. He had on Neoprene bib overalls. From experience, I would guess we’re about the same height. My waterproof pants end at my waist. My waterproof boots end at my knees. I didn’t drop off the side and into the water until the wave ebbed back. It came up to my mid-thighs about 2 inches below the hem of my parka! I hustled up the surf before the next swell rolled in. “The dangeur comes from the sea.” We had a local volunteer escort up the beach. She was very friendly and informative. We found a waiting school bus to shuttle us uphill to the community center. We were happy for a ride. There was no pretense of gravel roads here. It was dirt, mud or frozen mud depending on sun exposure I suspect. There was a sod house being built near the landing as a demonstration of former nomadic homes. There were seal hide processing demonstrations in the community center as well as kicking contest demos. There were art & crafts sales. Clay found a cool t-shirt and I found a mug as well as some local art note cards.  We walked over to the Co-op where we bought nothing, but saw several narwhal tusks for sale. This would have been where we should have turned left to go to the Northern, but in the absence of guidance we crossed to the right and the large gathering atop the viewpoint. It was the captain and community elders have a plaque ceremony and dedication of the Crystal-donated signpost. After that we continued walking downhill to find the community center. It has a small museum and gift shop. It is attached to the public library. I wish I had known they had a small free library between the 2 sections as I have 2 Jane Austen paperbacks onboard that I would have been happy to donate. As it was, no outdoor boots or shoes were allowed inside so Clay sat outside and I couldn’t even make a monetary donation since I didn’t carry a purse. We saw 2 small flocks of Tundra Swans flying south go by overhead. We came back to Serenity at about our 11:30am ticketed time. We heard throat singing from Crystal Plaza as we tromped up the mid-ship stairs from the zodiac tender area on the crew deck. They are doing the local performers again at 4pm.

We had lunch in Lido. We have free time until 4pm and the local performers. At 5:30pm they have asked us all to don our red parkas and go out to decks 12 and 13 for aerial drone group photos. We have a 6:30pm Prego reservation. We are entitled to I believe 1 more Silk Road and 2 more Prego complimentary reservations but every time we ask to come they tell us it has to be after 8pm. We’ve refused those and had a couple of earlier times offered but evidently negotiations like that are required for every single reservation and we just haven’t been up to the struggle. We’ll see.

We say good bye to several of our expedition staff here and get new people for Greenland. I know for sure that Leslie and Stevie are returning home here in Pond Inlet. We will miss them. Leslie pointed her grandmother out to me in the community center participating in the seal skin demonstration. She was cutting out boot soles and handling the blubber lamp thing. I know that flat basin thing has a name, but I can’t remember it! We stood on the 6^th floor rail over the Crystal Plaza for the 4pm local entertainment. We had more Arctic Games with the kicking contests again as well as some extremely more bizarre contests such as finger and face pulling. There were ai-ai-yi singers, drum dancers and throat singers. They did a good job. The ai-ai-yi singer lit one of the blubber lamps and they said the name, but I’d never be able to spell it. It starts with a Q.

We went to the 5:30pm parka photo op. The polar bear came. The captain and his wife came. They said they were going to photograph us with a drone, but the drone never came. There were at least 4 other photographers at the base of the funnel though. The captain pointed out that the Shackelton is a Norwegian built ship, the Canada Coast Guard ship that has been here next to us all day is named Henry Larsen for a Norwegian and the center ship Serenity is captained by a Norwegian. We walked around and took photos afterwards. Eclipse Bay is one of the most beautiful and scenic places we have ever seen. Clay thinks Antarctica rivals it in places but that is probably because you wouldn’t find a Pond Inlet there. Nothing I had ever read or seen about the North West Passage cruise prepared me for the spectacular scenery and stark and changeable beauty.

We had a 2^nd dinner in Prego. We liked it better this time. We had some different things. Clay loved his Osso Bucco. I had a fiery hot Arrabiatta sauce on spaghetti. Clay said his was very good. We’d like to try to return for the rest of our complimentary reservations.

No Internet now, I’ll try again later. We have to lose an hour tonight and another hour tomorrow night! Tomorrow is scenic Baffin Island fjord cruising.  

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A Day in Tay Sound off Baffin Island

Saturday, September 3, 2016

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Around 6pm yesterday we set sail. After exiting Crocker Bay, we sailed across Lancaster Sound which was still rough and during the night we sailed through a zigzagging fjord (Navy Board) to settle for the day past Pond Inlet on Tay Sound. We drew a goose egg on the unexpected adventures today. According to Tim Soper last night, today is the last time unexpected adventures are offered. I am not sure if it because the Shackleton leaves us at Pond Inlet or what. I know that is where all the helicopters, kayaks, zodiacs and fast boat live so that would make sense but we haven’t been told. We had an envelope on our mail clip last night. It contained a letter notifying us that they had canceled our complimentary community visit in Sisimiut. It said everyone could go ashore to the pier and use a complimentary shuttle bus transfer to the historic quarter where we could use the enclosed complimentary admission ticket to the Sisimiut Museum. This is the 2^nd of the complimentary tours that has been canceled so far. The 1^st was Dutch Harbor which worked out fine since we were docked there. Since we are anchored and tendering in to a pier somehow in Sisimiut, it seems a bit more complicated. Thus far no one has been able to leave the ship at will unless we’ve been docked. All regular tendering and zodiac tendering have required a booking (complimentary or paid) with assigned timed tickets to leave the ship. There is no mention of this in the letter and the museum ticket is not timed. We’ll find out. The letter says the pier is about a 1 mile walk to the Old Quarter but that it is steep and involves stair climbing. The incentive bonus for walking is that there may be a few craft outlets open along the way. I’m not sure that is promising enough for me to want to walk but if the transportation shortage is severe enough, I can hope that it is promising enough. The letter also offers another strenuous tour that is new, a Scenic Lake Walk for 2 hours and $69. Pass.

72 degrees 15.92’ N 78 degrees 54.30’W Today we are positioned with the Shackleton in a tangle of mountainous islands. Some were snowcapped when we arrived, the rest have gotten dusted as we’ve set here today. It started out at 27F and the deck around 7 had a good coating of snow. The sun has tried with limited success to break through as the snow clouds/ice fogs have traveled over and around us. The temperature at noon was 36F which was the warmest we’ve seen in days. I suspect there must have been a ray of sunshine on the sensor at noon as it snowed on the ship during lunch.

Clay was up early this morning for the treadmill. He came back around 7am and woke me up to see the snow outside on the Promenade Deck and surrounding mountains. I checked the TV’s navigation map to find that we had passed in the night through the S-shaped passage north of Pond Inlet that had looked like some of our most scenic sailing in satellite maps. We were approaching Pond Inlet and passed by and kept threading between islands. We stopped here about 9am for the day of unexpected adventures. But, none for us. I went to Gentle Yoga. I had thought to go to the 10am Hollywood Theater movie but we walked by there this morning to find a sign saying that the morning and afternoon movies had been canceled. It was not too surprising as when they use all the theaters and lounges as staging areas for adventures, they can’t use them for shows. There was Chair Yoga at 10:15am which I sometimes attend and I thought I would today. I went to the Ladies’ Room outside Palm Court before yoga and as I was washing my hands, Kitty the art instructor came out and greeted me by name. I was surprised that she remembered me or my name from the 2 sculpting class I attended. She did remember me though and very pointedly asked me to come for 10am beaded bracelet making at 10am. I made an excuse of not having time to sign up in advance in the Library per Reflections and she told me not to worry about that. I told her I would see her later meaning to be deliberately vague and she got happy like I was agreeing to go to the class. So, I went to the class and made a souvenir bracelet that I will never wear but I had nothing else better to do with that hour so it is good.

Clay and I caught up in the cabin before noon. The captain did not make an announcement today. We went up to Tastes for lunch because we wanted to sit on the starboard side to see the day’s operations with Shackleton. Our port side may be a more scenic view based on the morning’s Cineflex camera operations but all the human activity today is starboard. We haven’t seen any animals today, hardly even any birds. I don’t know whether all our noisy activity has scared everything off or whether there just isn’t much living here. The other option is that all the wildlife has cleared out in preparation for winter. At lunch we overheard a couple who’d gone out today say their guide told them that 2 weeks from now this entire bay would be frozen solid.

Today Serenity held a Grand Gala Buffet at noon in Crystal Plaza. I read the menu. We saw the buffet tables set up when we went to the main dining room to make 7:15pm reservations at Tastes for tonight. Clay went at the scheduled 11:30 photo op opening but we avoided the area for lunch. The past couple of meals with the main waiter we’ve had in the dining room have been longer and longer affairs. The first few times we had any of the 3 wait staff teams that make up our seating area, we were served promptly when skipping to the main course. With 2 of the 3 waiters that is still the case. In a twist, the head waiter has taken to giving us a preferred 2-top by a window when he can and the waiter there has stopped serving us promptly. He waits and coordinates all his tables now instead of serving each as they come in. Since the entire area is by reservation only, people can come in anytime. So we have found ourselves sitting at our empty table for 45 minutes or so waiting for our first course. Last night I had the regular filet steak and mashed potatoes with béarnaise and the potatoes were cold and the béarnaise had a skin on it. The steak wasn’t hot but tasted fine, I was just put off the whole meal by that time though. I didn’t like tonight’s menu and didn’t really want to take a chance on repeating that experience, so off to Tastes we’ll go tonight. We find the waiter who is doing this to be personable and charming so we’d hate to have to comment about this to him or anyone else. I mean he knows he’s doing it. Hopefully, he’ll figure out that we know he’s doing it and that we don’t appreciate it and he’ll stop it on his own.

There is a galley tour at 4:30pm. I am not interested. Clay is but is put off by the fact that the entire ship is invited to come meet at Crystal Plaza for it! I told him he should go ahead and go assuming that only a fraction of people will come and then they be taken in small groups. I don’t know if he’ll go or not. He is napping this afternoon since we have nothing else scheduled until the 5pm briefing and recap.

I realize the above paragraph may be construed as inaccurate. Let me clarify. These is nothing else for us this afternoon. Here is what is in Reflections for the afternoon: Computer University @ Sea, Memoir Writing, ZUMBA, Duplicate & Social Bridge, USC Digital Filmmaking, Odyssey Art at Sea (beaded bracelets again), afternoon tea time, BINGO and a 4 author book-signing event. The Cineflex camera will be back on for the afternoon so after I brush my teeth, I will settle in front of the window and TV with the views and my cross stitch. Miyako will really not give me another kit until I completely finished the first one I picked up. I hate to complain, but I will because at these prices this seems a pettily restrictive policy given that last year Oceania allowed a kit a week for months as long as I was actually working on a kit, whether I ever actually finished it or not. When I have finished here, I expect Miyako’ll tell me I cannot have another because I won’t be able to finish it before departing! I mean does she actually expect me to “turn in” my work when I finish it? I expect to take them home! Finished or work in process. We’ll see.

Clay has gone to the galley tour. I have spent the entire afternoon watching the Shackleton more or less full time on Cineflex. I guess there was nothing else to see. At times this afternoon, visibility has been down to 50 feet or so due to snow, fog, clouds or whatever the meteorological term for this phenome is. They ceased helicopter operations first as the weather changed. Serenity worked hard with thrusters to maintain position as white caps increased as well as snow fall and fog. I assume the wind must have either increased or changed direction blowing in a new weather system. Then they collected zodiacs. I watched a fast boat approach from the port side in very low visibility and heavy sideways snow. That had to be an unexpected adventure! It was the first sign of life I’d seen out the port side all day except helicopters early and deck walkers preening at their reflections in our window. The last thing I saw besides Shackleton was a group of kayakers still out paddling out beyond the Shackleton! Visibility has been so low that I don’t know if the Cineflex couldn’t see them until that cleared few minutes or he was just more interested in activity aboard Shackleton. I guess those kayakers were having an unexpected adventure too! I can’t imagine what the appeal of arctic kayaking could be without any signs of wildlife. I actually hope that they and the fast boat saw something that we didn’t here since they paid for it dearly and in discomfort. I guess otherwise it is just like northernmost American golf, bragging rights.

Back from the recap/briefing. The saw some snow geese and some small invertebrates in the water. Nothing else. Some had a better look at an iceberg we had caught corner glimpses of all day. Oh well. We expect to sail soon after 6pm. Captain says we should be anchored about 20 miles away off Pond Inlet by 8 to 9pm unless there is another boat in the anchorage and then we’ll be cruising back and forth on Eclipse Bay all night. We have 8:30am departure tickets tomorrow so we should be in our anchorage early tomorrow at any rate. Tim Soper showed a photo of the expedition team we’ll be picking up tomorrow for the next segment. They had installed a distances signpost as a Crystal gift to Pond Inlet at the viewpoint. They were standing in fresh snow so it looked like they had more than here. We had been told that this passage had been timed for the exact end of summer right before the door closed and winter arrived and here we are as the North West Passage door is closing. The helicopters leave tomorrow from Pond Inlet for their base in Yellowknife. The Shackleton will stay with us tomorrow for planned shore excursions with zodiacs, fast boat and kayaks. It will sail ahead to Greenland since it can only make 12 knots and we will linger for a last day (without shore trips or adventures) in the fjords of Baffin Island before a day sailing across Davis Strait to Greenland. One of the naturalists who spoke today pointed out that we are now in the Atlantic and had crossed from the Pacific. He didn’t specify where that happened but I still think it must have been Bellot Strait. This seems pretty important and I’m surprised no one made a bigger deal or at least a point about it.

We have an hour before dinner now, so if I can get online I’ll post this now.

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