{"id":12616,"date":"2019-07-17T23:20:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T23:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=12616"},"modified":"2019-10-02T21:33:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T21:33:50","slug":"wednesday-17th-july-2019-this-evening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=12616","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday 17th July 2019 – THIS EVENING …"},"content":{"rendered":"

… I was standing at the top of the stairs, lost in Space
\n“Do you need any help?” asked the waitress
\n“I’m thinking” I replied. “I need all the help that I can get with that!”.<\/p>\n

Last night was another depressing night. I’m certain that the ship’s engines stopped at something like 04:00 because the silence awoke me and I didn’t hear the familiar rumble. In fact, I wondered where I was.<\/p>\n

A trip down the corridor later, I was back asleep but only for about an hour or so before I was awake again. But absolutely flat-out tired and it was a real effort to beat the third alarm.<\/p>\n

After the usual morning procedure I was up on deck. The sun was quite low, trying its best to peek through the clouds and so I took a couple of photos of what should have been the early morning sunrise to start off the day.<\/p>\n

Breakfast was rather later this morning and we were there for quite some considerable time having a good chat, before we attended to the business of the day.<\/p>\n

It was a very strange morning. There was a very low sea-mist drifting around so one moment we were swathed in a thick mist with some beautiful rainbows, and the next minute we were bathed in a bright warm sunshine.<\/p>\n

So warm was it that we actually sunbathed on the rear deck for quite a while in the company of another couple of people.<\/p>\n

And then the fun began.<\/p>\n

“Thar she blows!” came the cry from the starboard side. And there cruising along at the side of our ship was a bottle-nosed whale. He accompanied us for a while before disappearing down into the deep.<\/p>\n

Five minutes later we had another “thar she blows!”, this time from the port side. And there, performing a couple of antics was a sperm whale. He swam along the surface for a while and then with a swish of his tail he plunged downwards too.<\/p>\n

By now we were insight of the Greenland coast. Just briefly because the mist closed in again at that moment. So that was that.<\/p>\n

We went to a lecture on glaciers which took us up to lunchtime.<\/p>\n

Lunch was interrupted by a “glaciers on the starboard bow!”. The mist had finally lifted, for good too and there up along the Greenland coast were some rather large icebergs waiting to catch the current.<\/p>\n

We had a briefing later, and then we all crowded onto the observation deck to watch the scene as we negotiated into a deep fjord. Kangerluluk or something like that, it’s called “The Awful Fjord”, basically because there is nothing here. No landing, no grass, no wildlife, nothing at all.<\/p>\n

but I do know that since the installation of AIS systems in ships, only one other ship had ever been in this fjord. And with a name like that, it’s hardly any surprise.<\/p>\n

But this afternoon while we were positioning ourselves, we were having some really beautiful sunshine, which is something of a surprise in Eastern Greenland, so it goes without saying that for a half-hour or so I was on the back deck of the ship on a comfortable chair … err … rather relaxed.<\/p>\n

Tea tonight was a buffet, and quite early too. And while we were sorting ourselves out, they were putting the zodiacs in the water. We dressed up in our winter woollies and then went for a cruise. There were three-hour cruises and one-hour cruises but we opted for the two-hour cruise, for reasons that every male my age will understand.<\/p>\n

This took us to the head of a couple of glaciers where we saw some small icebergs and we were lucky enough to see a calving. No spectacular icebergs, merely a few small blocks of ice, but it was a calving just the same.<\/p>\n

We then went across the fjord to inspect a few more icebergs. These were big ones and here was plenty of evidence of frozen rainwater and silt. There was even a glacier with a perfect band of soil. Had I seen that in Iceland I would have immediately thought of a layer of volcanic ash at some time during the formation of the glacier, but I’ve no idea of its significance in Greenland.<\/p>\n

The most interesting find however was one that vindicated the President of the American Public Enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He had asked the question “just what is an iceberg made of?” and was ridiculed, and even lampooned, because of what many people considered to be a ridiculous question. But here in the fjord there was a glacier that was studded with large rocks. Just the kind that might split open the side of a large ship.<\/p>\n

There was a pit-stop for hot chocolate laced with Bailey’s for those that wanted it, and then back here on the ship we had hot soup and bread for supper.<\/p>\n

It’s time for bed now so I hope that I have a decent sleep. But at least I know that my winter gear passed its first test. I was quite comfortable out there until the driver put his foot down to return to the ship.<\/p>\n

Quite a pleasant evening all round.<\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… I was standing at the top of the stairs, lost in Space “Do you need any help?” asked the waitress “I’m thinking” I replied. “I need all the help that I can get with that!”. Last night was another depressing night. I’m certain that the ship’s engines stopped at something like 04:00 because the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11683,4507,11800,12949,11708],"tags":[11687,1302,2560,4171,7793,8256,7089,12950,11736,12951,1271,242,4471,11738],"class_list":["post-12616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-canada","category-eric-hall-2","category-greenland","category-kangerluluk","category-ocean-endeavour","tag-adventure-canada","tag-crash-out","tag-eric-hall","tag-fog","tag-glacier","tag-greenland","tag-iceberg","tag-kangerluluk","tag-ocean-endeavour","tag-public-enquiry","tag-rainbow","tag-titanic","tag-whale-watching","tag-zodiac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12617,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12616\/revisions\/12617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}