{"id":12045,"date":"2017-08-10T17:03:23","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T21:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=12045"},"modified":"2017-12-01T07:43:14","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T12:43:14","slug":"cruising-prince-christian-sound-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=12045","title":{"rendered":"Cruising Prince Christian Sound, Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday – August 10, 2017<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0He said the previous cruise couldn\u2019t enter the narrow body of water due to the quantity of ice floating in the water. \u00a0We were thrilled when he announced, later in the evening, that most of the Sound was navigable.<\/p>\n

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The Rotterdam left Qaqortoq last night and continued in a south easterly direction. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0Then it would turn around and retrace its path back to the western entrance as the sun came up. \u00a0If 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.<\/p>\n

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We awoke at about six o\u2019clock and went out to the 9th deck to see the sights. \u00a0We walked to all the outdoor decks to take photographs. \u00a0Location Guide, Barbara, was supposed to give on-going commentary of the sound from the Crow\u2019s Nest beginning at seven o\u2019clock which would be broadcast throughout the ship. \u00a0So that overlook in the front of the ship was crowded.<\/p>\n

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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. \u00a0The Prince Christian Sound is one of these waterways between the mainland and an island called Sammisoq and several other islands. \u00a0The southern tip of Greenland is called Cape Farewell.<\/p>\n

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The channel is awesome and there are no words to adequately express the majesty and beauty of the Prince Christian Sound.<\/p>\n

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We were very lucky with the weather! \u00a0It was 50 degrees, it wasn\u2019t raining or foggy, and visibility was excellent. \u00a0The sun looked out between clouds several times during the morning and there was a very light breeze. \u00a0It was a bit cool standing on the outdoor decks but not bad at all.<\/p>\n

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Greenland is the world\u2019s largest island – Australia is a continent according to geologists. \u00a0The entire area of the center of Greenland is covered with a deep \u201cice sheet\u201d which never melts. \u00a0The perimeter of the island is ringed with jagged peaks of granite rock. \u00a0No-one lives in the center of Greenland. \u00a0The \u00a0inhabitants only live in small villages along the sea.<\/p>\n

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The incredible beauty of Prince Christian Sound is shown in the glaciers, waterfalls, icebergs, and jagged mountains.<\/p>\n

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There is only one settlement along Prince Christian Sound and that is Aappilattoq with 132 inhabitants. \u00a0We looked off our balcony to see a tiny powerboat come alongside the ship. \u00a0A couple of people in the boat were waving at the spectators on the Rotterdam, so I waved back and took their picture.<\/p>\n

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\"DSCThe ship had turned around and was almost back to the beginning of the channel by about 10:30. \u00a0Seeing Prince Christian Sound had been an incredible experience.<\/p>\n

We had an early lunch with two women who were five-star HAL Mariners. \u00a0When I asked how many cruises they had done, one woman said, \u201cOh we don\u2019t count cruises, we count days!\u201d \u00a0One of them had over 800 cruise days and the other woman had more than a thousand days cruising with Holland America. \u00a0Oh well, we have eight cruising days as of today and 992 days to go! \u00a0:-)<\/p>\n

Sometime in the the afternoon, we went to a lecture about Explorers During the Age of Discovery presented by John Nixon in the theater. \u00a0It 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.<\/p>\n

Jeff read the dinner menu and liked the choices so we went down to the Dining Room about 7:30PM. \u00a0I had smoked salmon rosettes, chicken soup, and grilled salmon. \u00a0All very good!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. \u00a0He said the previous cruise couldn\u2019t enter the narrow body of water due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruising"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13366,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045\/revisions\/13366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}