Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

Here are some photos that I have taken mostly in Greenland..Stay tuned for more!

Pastries in Corner Brook, Newfoundland

Local people Paamiut, Greenland

Landscape in Paamiut, Greenland

Local girl in Paamiut, Geenland

They sure have a lot of letters in their words here! Paamiut, Greenland

Iceberg off of Greenland

Pat’s haircut on the ship

Hospital in Nuuk, Greenland with the statue of the Missionary founder, Hans, Egede, in the background.  We did climb up to see that.

Quaint cemetery in Nuuk, Greenland

Girl on sculpture in Nuuk, Greenland

July 31

The fog finally lifted at around noon and we were able to go shore to this lovely town, lots of snow covered mountains and very colorful houses.  We did a lot of walking, visited their craft shops and went to a fish market where they were cutting up whale.  Not the way I wanted to see a whale, but the young butcher was very proud to tell us it was the neck, and to let me take a picture.

Whale butcher in Nuuk

The landscape of the small charming city is behind us.  Note the one “high rise”!

There is rare complimentary Internet in  Greenland and even for the locals it is very expensive.  One of the crew asked and the local people just laughed!

Here’s today’s quote in one of the messages left in our room:

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today was a wonderful experience – and we even telephoned my dad from here in Greenland.

July 31
Last night and this morning, we were unable to access the ship’s Internet- even at its slower speed, we tend to depend on it, so I will hopefully find wifi on shore. 

I went up to the Internet cafe and talked to the a manger there who said there is interference win the signal so no one can access it. Here is the info that I had read on the monitor there and asked him to print for me so I could include it in the blog:

At home the Internet data travels only until the closest local exchange which is no longer than a few miles from your home. The data travels through high speed optical fiber.

At sea the Internet data is transmitted over a slower wireless signal from the ship to the satellite 22,236 miles above the Earth. The data then bounces down to Earth, then back up again and finally back to the ship.

Depending on the latitude we’re sailing at, this can mean a trip of up to 100,000 miles for that Internet page I am waiting to load, that is a distance equivalent to a trip 4 times around the globe! So no wonder it sometimes is so slow, with that info at hand, I feel lucky to be connected at all!

We are in Nuuk, Greenland’s largest city and capital. It is also the world’s northernmost capital. It has a population of 15,000 which also makes it one of the least populated national capitals in the world. About a quarter of all of Greenland’s population lives here. As I wrote before, our hiking excursion was cancelled, so we will explore on our own or hire someone on shore. We were so fortunate to have a lovely, sunny day yesterday which they said happens only about 30 days a year. Today it is again very foggy. We are at the port, but they cannot operate the tenders safely since it is so foggy, so we are relaxing.. They say the fog may lift later.  

Ah, Internet is back, but the fog has not lifted! We just received an invitation to a coffee for the around the world guests and they say we will have other special dinners with the officers, cocktail parties and other gatherings. The experience is so wonderful so far and looks to get even more exciting. Once we reach Europe, we have ports almost every day, you will see by the itinerary.

Looking forward to meeting Edmee, an ICF colleague, in Amsterdam!

July 30
So this morning started with a discussion between Norm and me about which continent Greenland is part of. I had to look it up, and although politically, Greenland is part of Denmark, it is part of the North American continent. Iceland, though, is part of Europe.

We are visiting Paamiut (Frederikshab), Greenland, today. We were to arrive at 8, but there is a lot of fog, so we were told that we wouldn’t be there until 10. We got to the area around 10:15 but it was close to 11:30 before the ship was cleared by local authorities to disembark passengers. We have to go ashore but tender here, and it is a 30 minute tender trip, so quite far. There are quite a few icebergs in the sea and we have our eye out for seals and whales which we were told were spotted here by the crew. The trip to shore actually took an hour because where the tender docks is very tight and we had to wait for 2 others to unload and load returning passengers.

Paamiut is a small fishing village where white tailed eagles are plentiful, although we didn’t see any. There is also a lot of snow and it hasn’t yet disappeared! There are lots of hiking trails and sailing is very popular here. We only saw motorboats. For us, the temperature is about 40, so we are bundled up. The people in the village are very friendly and I got several pictures, especially of the children. No wifi on shore, so the pictures will have to wait. The buildings are very colorful and there is a small church with an unusual cemetery and the replica of a ship hanging from the ceiling. This is a remote village, so time for walking and photos, enjoying nature.

Ship life remains wonderful. Every so often gifts appear in our room, for the world cruise travelers. So far we have received hats, a sailcloth bag, another tote bag and a travel journal with atlas at the back. These are always accompanied by a note – last night’s said “Beautiful and rare sights in this world are many, but beautiful travelers like you are few!”

The previous one was a quote by St. Augustine of Hippo that said “the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”. Amazing adventure so far!