A Titanic Day

(To answer our daughter’s request that there are more pictures of us in our photos; we will try. Jim takes all the pictures and he knows how very much I dislike my picture taken. So on really good days I suggest he put me in the picture and if I like it, it goes into the blog. From now on I will try and take pictures with him in it. Maybe we will ask someone to take a picture of us both!)

(And also to clarify our Blue Lagoon…..we changed in separate areas, showered and re put on our swimsuits and then were reunited with everyone in the lagoon. Actually Jim didn’t rejoin me for about 15 minutes and I and others thought he was duking it out in the locker room with the man who called him “vicious”!)


We had been hearing rumors throughout the sailing that we were going to sail by Greenland. Some people thought it was on the itinerary while others, like us, never had it listed on our itinerary.

Yesterday the Captain announced that if the weather permitted, if the ice wasn’t too thick, if all conditions were okay, then we would sail by Greenland. He said that we would reach the southern Greenland coast around 5:30 AM.

We were so excited that we went to bed early so that we could get up early and not miss this “once in a lifetime” experience.

We quickly awoke this morning, threw on our warm clothes and headed to the top of the ship, the Crow’s Nest. It was pitch black outside and not too many others were there. How could 2,000 people not jump at the chance to see this? Even though it was dark outside we could see a “token” iceberg right there! Remember 9/10th of the iceberg is below water so what we actually see is only 1/10th of the iceberg. This is incredible to say the least.

We had grabbed our daily event schedule that was left by our room after we retired last night. As we awaited the arrival of the sun I began reading and realized that the Captain was actually ENTERING Prince Christian Sound; a group of fjords packed with glaciers, icebergs, ice floes, and wildlife. Not only was he entering this wonderful area but we were cruising it all day long! We thought it was just a drive by and didn’t want to miss it. Of course it turns out everyone else knew that we would be driving by all day long!

This has been quite an experience. This very large ship has to navigate through channels of water that aren’t much wider than 3-4 football fields. At one point, Saddle Point, the ship has only one way to go-a complete 90 degree left turn into another channel of water. It has been amazing just watching this ocean liner navigate under these conditions.

All morning long the fog has come and gone. Sometimes it is clear enough to see waterfalls and birds and then just as quickly it turns into dense fog. It is also very cold and windy. I think the outside temperature is right about 40 degrees and add the wind chill and you can see why we are bundled up like Eskimos.

The gods favored us by granting a clear view of a small Inuit village. There were some fishing boats out on the water and two of them came racing up to our very large gigantic ship to greet us. No security worries here! We were waving, they were waving and the port lecturer said, “This is a very uncommon sight for these people.” It was all very surreal to say the least.

We owe a big thank you to our captain for this experience. He didn’t have to do this but felt like it was a chance for us to see something that we might never experience again. I am sure he will breathe easier once we leave for open waters again.

Enjoy the pictures. Like we said, sometimes it was clear and sometimes it was foggy. It just depended on when you blinked! Print this post