Thursday – August 10, 2017
Captain Mateboer had mentioned in his lecture that he would take a helicopter over Prince Christian Sound, while passengers were in Qaqortoq yesterday, to check on the ice conditions at the eastern end of the sound. He said the previous cruise couldn’t enter the narrow body of water due to the quantity of ice floating in the water. We were thrilled when he announced, later in the evening, that most of the Sound was navigable.
The Rotterdam left Qaqortoq last night and continued in a south easterly direction. The plan was for the ship to enter the western end of the sound at about 1:30 this morning and continue eastward as far as possible for several hours. Then it would turn around and retrace its path back to the western entrance as the sun came up. If passengers wanted to see the sound, they could wake up at dawn then go to a variety of indoor places or outdoor decks to see the beautiful Prince Christian Sound.
We awoke at about six o’clock and went out to the 9th deck to see the sights. We walked to all the outdoor decks to take photographs. Location Guide, Barbara, was supposed to give on-going commentary of the sound from the Crow’s Nest beginning at seven o’clock which would be broadcast throughout the ship. So that overlook in the front of the ship was crowded.
The southern end of Greenland is made up of many huge rocky islands separated by channels which were created by glaciers during the past ice age. The Prince Christian Sound is one of these waterways between the mainland and an island called Sammisoq and several other islands. The southern tip of Greenland is called Cape Farewell.
The channel is awesome and there are no words to adequately express the majesty and beauty of the Prince Christian Sound.
We were very lucky with the weather! It was 50 degrees, it wasn’t raining or foggy, and visibility was excellent. The sun looked out between clouds several times during the morning and there was a very light breeze. It was a bit cool standing on the outdoor decks but not bad at all.
Greenland is the world’s largest island – Australia is a continent according to geologists. The entire area of the center of Greenland is covered with a deep “ice sheet” which never melts. The perimeter of the island is ringed with jagged peaks of granite rock. No-one lives in the center of Greenland. The inhabitants only live in small villages along the sea.
The incredible beauty of Prince Christian Sound is shown in the glaciers, waterfalls, icebergs, and jagged mountains.
There is only one settlement along Prince Christian Sound and that is Aappilattoq with 132 inhabitants. We looked off our balcony to see a tiny powerboat come alongside the ship. A couple of people in the boat were waving at the spectators on the Rotterdam, so I waved back and took their picture.
The ship had turned around and was almost back to the beginning of the channel by about 10:30. Seeing Prince Christian Sound had been an incredible experience.
We had an early lunch with two women who were five-star HAL Mariners. When I asked how many cruises they had done, one woman said, “Oh we don’t count cruises, we count days!” One of them had over 800 cruise days and the other woman had more than a thousand days cruising with Holland America. Oh well, we have eight cruising days as of today and 992 days to go! :-)
Sometime in the the afternoon, we went to a lecture about Explorers During the Age of Discovery presented by John Nixon in the theater. It was an interesting lecture about world discoveries, but unfortunately I got up so early in the morning that I was falling asleep during the talk.
Jeff read the dinner menu and liked the choices so we went down to the Dining Room about 7:30PM. I had smoked salmon rosettes, chicken soup, and grilled salmon. All very good!