Iceland to Greenland

I had a nice local chap take me to the ship. When I arrived I was horrified. The queue was enormous and it was raining. The snaking line had no cover so, I dropped my bags and said, “fuck this”. I had retained the services of my driver, and hopped back in and said, “take me to a bar”. The first two were shut. It was a Saturday after all! Then we found a sports bar and I watched the Olympics, drank beer, and had one of the nicest cheeseburgers in ages.

Embarking a Norwegian ship is a shit show. I can recall three previous incidents where this has happened – once in Panama City and twice in Barcelona. A total feckin’ shambles.

After a pleasant hour and a half watching the 10m air rifle event, in Icelandic, I taxied back to the terminal and the outside queue had disappeared. There was still an inside queue, so I chatted to the luggage team instead. They were teenagers – the youngest was 13 and this was her second season. Good tip money for these youngsters.

I did manage to get an advantage once I’d passed the first line, because of my status. The hold up was due to Canadian immigration forms – two of them because we stop at a French territory in between. People could have filled these out whilst queuing. Scandalous inefficiency. I was one of the last onboard and the Captain came on and said there would be a change to the itinerary due to the weather.

I did abysmally at the Rock Band Visual Trivia. Then it was on to the solo travelers meeting to see if there was any one of interest. There wasn’t. Usual bunch of misfits, just more of them – about 30.

On Sunday we arrived at Isafjordur, Iceland in the Western Fjords and it looked grim. we were 30 miles from the Arctic Circle and it was grey and wet. I was very tempted to stay onboard. I decided to get off in the afternoon and look around the town. This would be a very challenging place to live for a chap from Beckenham. Even the seagulls looked depressed.

Late afternoon, the Captain announced that we were changing course, once again. The hurricane force winds south of Iceland were heading north so we needed to get to Greenland sharpish where it was slightly less shit. We ended up having one stop in Iceland instead of three and now we had three days at sea – two pootling around Prince Christian Fjords to stay out of the weather.

On Monday it was rather breezy on deck, and let’s not forget grey and wet. It was an inside day. I saw a chap running around the jogging track on the top deck and concluded he must have some kind of mental condition.

By mid afternoon the swell had reduced and the windspeed lowered. For a brief moment the sun came out. In the evening it worsened and we had a stiff following wind, despite going in the same direction at around 22 knots.

Tuesday morning was foggy and we couldn’t see a thing. The fog horn was sounded every two minutes. By then, even the Brits were complaining about the weather. But a few hours later, we entered the fjords and everything changed. The microclimate in the fjords meant we had a gentle breeze, blue skies and sunshine. Quite the contrast.

There are 66 miles of fjords with only one settlement of 98 Inuit. The Captain did a marvellous job dodging the icebergs, as we slowly made our way through the majesty of the fjords. They rivalled anything I’d seen in Norway, New Zealand, Chile, and even Balham. The highlight was a glacier that we managed to get very close to before spinning round. We overnighted in the fjords for protection.

On Wednesday we woke to magnificent scenery, although the wind had picked up and the temperatures had dropped to 38°. It was bitterly cold out on deck. My weather app still showed hurricane force winds if we ventured out into Prince Christian Sound. Luckily we were spending the day here.

After breakfast I headed for the spa area at the back of the ship to watch the scenery. I found a hot stone bed and tried my hardest to understand the appeal of such, so called, relaxation devices. In my cabin I have something called a bed which is infinitely more comfortable.

I’ve joined progressive trivia which occurs on sea days. I found a team that I’ve cruised with before, in fact, Ken and Cindy were also on the golden circle tour I did in Reykjavik. I think they’re following me.

Late afternoon was exceedingly pleasant and I took a walk around the top deck to get the steps up and take in the wondrous scenery all around us.