How We Never Got There
Trip Start
Aug 20, 2008
1
11
15
Trip End
Sep 15, 2008
Nuuk,
Greenland
Monday, September 8, 2008
Leaving Reykjavik, we were to have two "sea days" before reaching Greenland, the longest stretch of open ocean of the trip. To pass the time, on our first morning at sea, the ship scheduled a lecture on Greenland which was given by an Icelandic woman familiar with Greenland. She talked about the fishing and hunting culture and showed some interesting photos of the villages and settlements with their primary colored houses. As she was winding up her talk with a mélange of photos of glaciers, blue skies, colorful villages, etc. the ships bells interrupted with a message from the Bridge. "This is your captain speaking........."
Bad news it was. Forget the hurricanes coming up the coast, presently dumping rain in NewYork. There was a storm of gale winds and 20 and higher foot seas off Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland, right where we were headed. To protect us and the ship, the captain was altering our course. Our first stop in Greenland, Nuuk the capital, was being cancelled his voice over the public address informed us but in more upbeat tones he said he anticipated that the second port visit to Qaquartog would be as scheduled - next Tuesday. He did not say it but the implication was clear, we could look forward to four days of bouncing around on the North Atlantic trying to avoid a major storm between now and then.
There occurred a sudden interest on the part of the passengers in the weather maps that were posted daily on a bulletin board. Sure enough, examining the maps we could see a storm system, clearly blocking our passage to the west side of Greenland. Not a happy thought as who knew which direction it might take. It was to our southwest. Didn't these storms move in a northeast direction? The captain had abandoned the course to the southwest and we were now heading due west. Would the storm pass under us that way?
At about this time, our in-room t.v.'s, "due to our position", no longer got CNN, Sky News, or the BBC anymore, leaving those following the (now nearing the finals) U.S. Open feeling hanging. We'd followed the Olympics and then the tennis tournament no matter where we had been, but now that link to feeling part of the world was severed! And, of course, news, weather updates and the like were gone as well.
This isolation, which 30 years ago happened all the time, turned out to be quite unsettling in an era of instant communication. We are now used to communicating with the rest of the world at any time anywhere. To be incommunicado in the middle of the North Atlantic with a storm bearing down was frightening in the context of modern-day living. And as the day progressed, the wind picked up and the ocean swells became higher and higher. By nightfall, the boat was pitching and swaying for all she was worth. Our cabin groaned under the strain. And despite the little map of the ship's route on our closed circuit t.v.'s, we really didn't know
where we were going.
After the captain's initial announcement of the change in plans, there was nothing further from "the bridge." The little boat moved across the t.v. screen but very slowly as we continued heading due west at 6 knots, not even a jogging pace. Since we had over three days to cover less than 400 miles, this made some sense but if you are trying to outwit a storm, there is this natural feeling that you should be going somewhere FAST, not slowing down to a crawl!
All night, that night, the boat heaved and groaned. In the morning the seas were still high but rays of sunshine peaked through the clouds for awhile which was heartening. We ran down and checked the weather map. It looked as if the storm was in fact passing us to the south. And a beautiful rainbow appeared descending from the clouds into the sea. Maybe we were home free. But alas, not soon enough to visit Nuuk! And the weather continued to be a changing mixture of clouds, rain, and the occasional appearance of the sun for the rest of the day as we made our way slowly westward in choppy seas.
The following morning, opening the curtains, we saw land ahead! Greenland at last! The ship had now turned south and was following the Greenland coastline. And the seas were nearly flat with not a cloud in the sky! As we steamed along all that day, we enjoyed spectacular views of snow-capped mountains and huge glaciers sliding into the sea. The sun warmed the temperature up into the 40's and 22 of us even had a short swim in the pool, earning certificates that we had swam "along the coast of Greenland", becoming members of the exclusive Polar Bear Club.
We were learning, however, that with the sea things can reverse themselves quickly. In a period of about two hours, we went from smooth sailing to small waves to swells that grew progressively into walls of water. They rose higher and higher as the hours passed until they were ten or twelve foot high writhing, watery mountains, dark blue at the bottom with the sun giving them a transluscent turquoise cast at their peaks the instant before their unstable masses crashed into writhing white foam. It was truly awesome to see water rise that high, if only for a few seconds.
And how could our boat stay upright? This was surely not the worst weather the ship had seen. In fact for this patch of the Atlantic we were enjoying relatively good weather. The sun was even out! The turbulence was because we were in the process of rounding Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland. The name "Cape" should have been a clear tip-off of what might be expected. We knew that the southern tip of South America was famously treacherous where the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific met. So, too, the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa. And what about Cape Fear? Should we not have expected similar waters where the North Atlantic met the Sea of Labrador?
For about 6-8 hours we ploughed our way through waters the likes of which I hope I will never see again. And it was not until we entered the fjord where Qaquartog is located that things really finally calmed down. In the future if a cruise includes a passage with the word Cape in it I will never, never sign up for it!
Our reward, however, was Qaquartog! In the space of 12 hours, we went from "never leaving home again" to being thrilled to actually be in Greenland. And lucky we were to be there! Turns out that for the past three years the cruisers on this trip had never been able set foot on Greenland due to weather and sea conditions. What a
disappointment that would have been to steam by our primary destination with only distant views of glaciers and icebergs!
