After departing Nuuk, we headed West to Canada. We knew the crossing would be rough, but easier the closer we got. Even though Theresa put her patch on, she still did not feel up to dinner. I went alone, but was seated with a couple, and then later a “consultant” brought on board to make sure the ship passed the Canadian health inspection. He was retired from the US Public Health department, but makes his living inspecting ships around the world. It made for some interesting dinner conversation.
After dinner, they had an event they called “Liar’s Club”. I think it was a little like a cross between the old TV game show, and the board game Balderdash. Four of the Expedition Team sat in a row and each gave a definition to an unfamiliar word. Three gave a made up definition and one was the truth, and the passengers tried to guess who was telling the truth. It was rather funny, especially the one guy who gave VERY long winded tales that either started with fish innards, or included moth wings, or both!
[Icebergs in the morning.]
In the morning, the sea was much calmer, but still not smooth. After breakfast, we enjoyed a lecture about living and working (research) in the Arctic. One of the expedition team had been a manager for a research site in mid-Greenland, and had also spent a few tours at the South Pole. It was very interesting.
For lunch, we were joined the expedition photographer, and the Expedition Leader. The conversation was pretty varied, but ended when the German Lead made jokes about soccer to the Brazilian photographer! It was all in good fun. But both left pretty quickly; so quickly in fact, that the photographer left his camera!! We gave it to another Expedition Team member, who took some amount of joy in the situation!
[Icebergs in the afternoon.]
In the afternoon, we had another lecture and then the Team Trivia. The Trivia was put on by one of the expedition Staff from Canada, and since tomorrow we arrive in Canada, he decided to make that the subject. The Title was…
[Canadian Trivia!]
I was rather happy to get 15 of the 20 questions right, but some of them were little more than guessing! How many of the guests on board are Canadian? They had multiple choices of 1, 2, 5, and 9, I think. Well, we had met 5 people at least from Canada, so we presumed there were a few more we hadn’t met, and we were right. Another question was where the name “Canada” originated. It was the Iroquois word for “village”. When the British met the Iroquois, and were invited to come back with them to “Canada” (their village), the Brit’s presumed that was the name of their land, and thereafter called it “Canada”.
We had a short Daily Briefing, focusing mostly on what was happing tomorrow, then a presentation on Arctic Birds. The first 6 minutes of the presentation were ok, but there wasn’t enough water on board to wash down the dry expanse to follow!! 1/3 the way through, I was in informational overload, and it was just random birds.
Tonight was a formal night, and also a reception for the “Venetian Society”, the frequent cruisers for Silversea. Well, since we bought the tickets with my airline discount, we are not eligible for belonging to that club, and we were “not invited”. They had appetizers and drinks in another lounge, so when we got ready, we went to the “losers lounge” and enjoyed the “losers libations”. We spotted a couple from England, and sat with them and laughed about our shared status as “not invited”. I think the first cruisers were not included too. We ended up having dinner with them and laughed a lot at dinner. It was a lot of fun! He and I talked about airplane crashes over many decades, and she and Theresa talked about…I’m not really sure… Earrings at some point. We had a good laugh over the tray table on our flight from Houston to Norway (as it was spring loaded with extra oomph).
If there are Northern Lights, they will make an announcement, so we are both hopeful and yet tired. Who knows?
ADDENDUM:
At 11PM, the Expedition Leader came on over the PA system and told us they had spotted Northern Lights. We got dressed, and headed up to see. I tried to get a decent picture, but had no luck. This is the best picture I managed.
[Northern Lights. They looked much better in person than this reflects!]
When we first arrived up there, I could barely see where they even were. But, the lights changed a lot while we were up there, different shapes, patterns, and brightness.
One light did show up very well…the search light to make sure we didn’t become a repeat of the Titanic! It sort of looks like a Star Trek Phaser Beam! (Add your own sound effects!)
[No icebergs…straight ahead!]
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