Friday – September 1, 2017
We set the clocks back another hour last night. Since we’re heading westbound, we’re getting back those hours we lost when we began this journey. We left Isafjordur, Iceland the day before yesterday and cruised down the body of water between Iceland and Greenland known as the Denmark Strait. The seas were not as rough as Captain van der Wal predicted they might be. Fortunately.
Passengers get up to the minute reports on current conditions on one of the channels of the television. I was amazed to see depths of eight to over nine thousand feet. This is the location of the world’s highest underwater waterfall. It’s three times taller than the earth’s highest waterfall and no-one can see it because it’s underwater.
The waters between Greenland and Canada are called “Iceberg Alley” because the huge chunks of ice break off glaciers on the western coast of Greenland and float down the strait. They seem to collect among the islands on the southern coast of greenland called Cape Farewell.
At six o’clock this morning the fog horn announced the current visibility: dense fog. I could barely see the water outside from our balcony. The air temperature was 35 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun was trying to come out and it brightened into a bright sunny day by eight o’clock. The ship barreled toward shore. The Rotterdam is the fastest ship in Holland America’s fleet and we guessed the captain was testing its limits.
The jagged peaks of Greenland came into view as we approached the narrow opening of Prince Christian Sound on the southeastern corner of this amazing country. As we got closer, the coastline was littered with icebergs of all sizes and shapes. We remembered that we could not cruise the entire length of the Sound a couple of weeks ago when we left Qaqartoq and sailed into Prince Christian Sound on our way to Iceland. We went about three quarters of the way and had to turn around because the eastern end was blocked by ice.
The sun brightened and Captain van der Wal slowed the ship considerably. Three very large icebergs sat impressively at the mouth of the sound. We tried to guess the ship’s route. We remembered they announced that two Danish “Ice Pilots” stationed in Greenland came aboard to get us through the narrow sound. I guess they were earning their salaries today.
The ship slowly crawled past the first iceberg then cut between the next two icebergs and slowed it’s pace, giving us lots of time to take many photos of the floating ice. The water looked very cold. We were reminded that 90% of the iceberg’s mass was underwater. So the ice pilots gave them a wide berth.
For the next several hours, the ship creeped along the narrowest part of the Prince Christian Sound. The entire “Sund,” as it’s called in Danish, is incredibly beautiful and awe-inspiring. There are not adequate words to describe the steep rocks, glaciers, jagged mountains, waterfalls, and icebergs.
The ship approached a large glacier and stopped. Then, believe it or not, the Rotterdam did a 360 degree turn right in front of the glacier, between the narrow stone walls of the Sound. It was incredible! Captain Eric van der Wal was showing off!
Near the western approach to Prince Christian Sound is a tiny village of about a hundred people:
This was an unforgettable day!!!