Day 17 - 08/19/22 - Nanortalik, Greenland

 We woke up to the TV screen view of the final entry of the ship to its mooring in the tiny bay dotted with large icebergs (one was half as long as the ship and another one third the length of the ship).  With such a small town we didn't feel the need to immediately tender to shore.  So we ate breakfast and packed a simple picnic lunch.  We tendered to shore and walked clockwise around the island.  What was striking was the brightly-colored houses and buildings much like we saw in Iceland. The people look a lot like we've seen in Alaska and Russia and northern Japan.  The area looks a bit poor and I'm sure having 2,000 guests from a cruise ship show up helps the local economy. We saw one taxi and there are no tour buses here.  It's the 'ankle express' or one's mobility scooter that is the cruiser's transportation. The town ambulance was a small white Land Rover 4x4.

 

There were many residents selling handicrafts of which Angela supported the local economy.  We walked by a church and discovered that they were doing a short concert for $10 each.  So we bought tickets for the 11am performance.  It was beautiful to hear. Afterwards we paid $10 per person  to tour the Open Air Museum. This museum is a collection of old buildings housing various historical artifacts and each building had a plaque describing its history and former uses.

 

For lunch we found a picnic table and ate our picnic lunch with a terrific view of the harbor.  Afterwards we continued on a long walk to the far side of the island and back to the tender area.  We visited the local grocery store where I purchased some treats for gifts. With an early 3:30pm last tender, we walked back to the tender area where we caught the 2nd to last tender. Overall we logged around 5 miles.  

 

Back on board we shed our coats and backpacks and I went up to the Crows Nest to watch the sail away.  It was a nice sail away with lots of icebergs and some were the size of our ship.  It took about an hour and a half to reach open sea.  Dinner was in the Lido and the evening entertainment was Paul Stepien , winner of Poland's Got Talent.  He's pretty good on a flute and many other instruments.  We watched the Call my Bluff Game show featuring the two BBKing vocalists and the comedian Andrew Grose before watching a set of Meagan & Gabe in Billboard Onboard (probably our favorite music venue this cruise).  This couple is very good together and their performances are well attended..

 

After a short break, we dressed in our warm clothes and tried again to watch for the northern lights.  But it was cloudy and we were unsuccessful and gave up around midnight.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 19 - 08/21/22 - St. Anthony, Newfoundland

  Our 7am arrival came way too early on this Sunday morning. So we didn't get up until the tender operation started.     We took time for breakfast and then packed up and headed down to the tender deck.     We were last on the tender and we were sitting right next to the edge as the tender slammed into the tender platform.     Then we had rushing water pass by us as the tender plied its way to the shore.     Once on land we headed off to walk to the Fox Point lighthouse which was about 1.5?miles away.     We passed by a PBY Catalina that was displayed in a small park.     The views at the lighthouse we very nice.     There was a nice souvenir shop and the owners built it themselves as a retirement project. They come up here every summer and work the shop, live in their trailer, and then return for the winter in their home in St. John, Newfoundland.   We then walked to the other end of town and bought some so...
Read more

Day 13 - 08/15/22 - Djúpivogur, Iceland

  Due to a cancellation we were able to obtain two seats on a private excursion to the Hoffellsjökull     Glacier. That's the good news. The bad news was the ship arrived at 7am and we needed to be on the first tender.     This translated into getting up before 6am!     But we did it and were first at the tender holding area on deck 1.     We met the tour organizer, Jean-Pierre, along with rest of the group and we made the first general tender.   On shore in this tiny town of 400, we connected with the local tour operator and we walked up the slight incline where our expedition vehicle was waiting for us.  Essentially it was a HIGHLY modified Mercedes Sprinter van that rested on huge oversized tires suitable for going off road. The tire pressure can be changed on the fly!  I thought to myself: cool! And I probably verbalized it.  We paid the tour operator and climbed up into it.  We only were a gro...
Read more