Rachel, today we heard about the mosquito/midgie issue. I figured it would be too cool and breezy for insects, but evidently they can be a real problem in some placesmin Greenland and Canada. For instance, today, Juan led a hike above the Inuit village and they warned people about the bugs ahead of time. We didn't go on it, but are going on the long hike tomorrow morning. Where we are landing tomorrow isn't supposed to be buggy. I brought repellant towelettes and will let you know how it goes, but based on want we've heard I would bring repellant.

Thanks Leslie. Let me know how it goes. I have been attacked by an entire squadron of Mosquitos in western canada before.

wonderful pix and descriptions. What a remarkable trip!

cheers, Anne

Leslie thanks for all the info. It sounds like a fantastic adventure, can't wait for our turn. Keep us posted as time and the Web permit!
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Helen

Leslie, I'm loving hearing about your trip -- hope the bugs stay away!

We awoke to light drizzle. Our morning landing for Lichtenau, once a large Moravian missionary settlement in the 19th century, was canceled. A scout boat was dispatched at 6:30 AM to check conditions on the hike options, but returned with the news that the mosquitos and midgies were "unbearable" and predicted to get even worse if the rain eased. (I am not sure what a midgie is, but suspect its something like a sandfly?)

So we continued on to Unartoq Island for time in the hot springs. About 1/2 the passengers took them up on that and took a zodiac to the shore in the rain and soaked in the 38 degree Celsius water for awhile.

After lunch the weather improved a bit and they launched zodiac tours around the local icebergs. The first groups embarked in drizzling weather, but we were in the second group and enjoyed better conditions. No rain, interesting light, but a bit of chop making photos somewhat difficult.

Some facts about Greenland so you will know the answers to some trivia questions:
It's the largest island with 2,166,086 sq km
The northernmost point, Cape Morris Jessup, is only a bit over 400 miles to the North Pole
85% of the area is covered by icecap.
The population is 56,648. Almost 15,000 people live I. The capital, Nuuk. There are 3 other "cities": Sisimiut (5,344 people), Ilulissat (4,512), and Qaqortoq (3,238). There are an additional 18 towns and 129 villages where the rest of the population lives.

Icebergs:

Just logged in today, and wanted to add my thanks for the posts and the pics. Keep them coming.

August 12:
This morning we docked in Qaqortoq, South Greenland's largest town with about 3,000 inhabitants. We were divided into groups of about 15 to 20 for a walking tour with a local guide, one of the highlights being a visit to the harbor front open air market where seal, freshly butchered reindeer, fish and bagged vegetables were on offer. The reindeer's antlers sat on the pier as a reminder that this was fresh this morning.

Today was the first day at school; the ship delayed its departure so we could see the ceremony welcoming each student to school. One by one they called each student's name and they came up with their family to shake the teachers' hands and receive a flag of Greenland. The tradition is to throw coins and candy as each kid comes up front so there was a mad scene as lots of children ran through the crowd to gather their bounty. Many were traditionally dressed and beaming for the camera.

More from Qaqortoq

In the afternoon the ship repositioned a short way to Hvalsey where we went ashore to visit the ruins of a Viking settlement an church.

A word about the bugs for Rachel and Helen. Although not too bad today they were definitely out. Many people donned their recommended mosquito netting "hoods". The tourist office had them for sale so I bought them. They ran about $7; I am told you can get them at home for about $3.50. I now recommend that you bring them along.

Thanks for the bug advice, Leslie. Will go to the sporting goods store and buy the hoods this weekend.

August 13
This morning we anchored in a fjord off Brattahid aka Qassiarsuk, where Eric the Red settled after being banished from Iceland and Norway for committing murder. A statue of his son, Lief Ericson, towers over the modern day farm community of about 50. Nearby are the ruins of his manor house and a recreation of a Norse longhouse and what is believed to be the first Christian church in North America, built for Eric the Red's wife when she converted to Christianity. We had a very dramatic guide who told us the whole story with considerable aplomb.

Leslie, how much water have you needed to step in when getting on shore from the zodiac. I have some hiking boots that are waterproof up to the mid ankle and for me they are more comfortable to walk in than the boots on the ship. Am thinking of taking those boots for the northwest passage cruise.

How cute are those kids!! Thanks, Leslie, for the bug hood tip. Repellant not enuf I guess? What are the temps like? It doesnt look very cold.
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Helen

Ralph - no water landings so far. I wore the rubber boots on a zodiac cruise so as not to get my feet wet. All of our landings, so far, have been onto jetties or a dock yesterday. The aborted insect landing was going to be wet, but just ankle deep. Today is our last day in Greenland so will report in on the landings in Canada.

Helen - everyone says repellant is not enough, especially for the biting flies. Those hoods are not a fashion statement but I think we will be glad we have them. If not, they were 't expensive, and I am not sure that we will have any shopping ops anytime soon.

The temperature has been quite moderate. Mid 50's most days ashore, cooler on the cloudy days, and in the zodiacs.

Leslie, thanks for the response. I am sure that your bug hoods will make lovely souveniers (?) of your trip to Greenland.
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Helen

Leslie, thanks for the information. Will appreciate any additional input as you make your way to Churchill.

The visits to the local villages are one of the aspects I am looking forward to on the northwest passage cruise. Can not believe that many get to see how people live that far north. Very unique cultures I am sure.

Leslie, thanks for these reports; really interested in your experiences in Canadian ports.

Can you ask onboard if Robin West is still with Silversea? Juan Carlos Restrepo is listed as Expedition Leader for NARWHAL next year; kind of surprised it isn't Robin.

thanks,

Marc

Marc,

There was a news release by Seabourn that Robin West and his wife Yarda moved to their new ship that is doing the Antarctic cruises along with some other expeditions. This was maybe six months ago or so. Expect they were offered compensation that they could not turn down.
Juan was on both the SilverSea cruises I have down and he was very good. Should be a good Expedition Leader.
Robin was good but do not expect his departure will change things much.

Ralph, thanks; I had not seen the report regarding Robin and Yarda. Juan was good on Zodiac; however, current Silversea site shows Juan and another geologist and three historians on the expedition staff; I have been expecting the site to be updated with a more balanced team. Now, I know Robin will not show up as part of that "balancing."

Robin West is the expedition leader on our cruise, so if he left he came back. Juan Carlos is here, Robin Aiello, a couple of historians-Christian aka Rapa Nui, and a guy named Peter who is quite intertaining and knowledgable. I will look up the list of everyone and post it, there are 14 of them. Claudia does the birds, Kara is a biologist along with Robin Aiello, Uli does marine stuff too. He is doing a lecture this afternoon on diving in Svalbard, there are 2 gun guides, one a young woman from Svalbard. And a couple more expedition staff too.

Marc, take another look at the list. While it will probably change it does include, a conservation biologist,oceanographer,general naturalist,environmentalist,and another naturalist / bear guard. There are three historians but wonder if that is too cover the various cultures that we will experience. I know Brayden would love it if Robin Aiello would also be part of the staff. He enjoyed her very much. She may have gone to seaborn with robin west.

I recall many of the names. Not sure if from arctic or Antarctic cruises.

This cruise is now only a year away and I continue to build my excitement for the cruise which will truly be an expedition.

Leslie, thanks for the update on your Expedition Team. I agree with Ralph that I would look forward to Robin on our cruise; can you ask her if she might be onboard?
Peter was the historian on Zodiac; very knowledgeable and a great lecturer; had issues with him, though, as zodiac driver/guide.

Ralph, I am really glad we have same photographer on board; Richard was fantastic.

Very,very interesting about Robin West. It might be that he had contracted for this cruise before taking the seaborn position. There are issues with what seaborn is trying to do in Antarctic that makes one wonder how it can work.

My experience on the two Silversea cruises was that the expedition staff was super. Very highly educated and knowledgeable and approachable. Marc, agree about Richard. While it is pricey the end of cruise DVD is a must purchase in my book.

Leslie, any info about the plans for our NARWAL cruise would be much appreciated.

Leslie, your expedition staff is exactly the same as what we had last year in Svalbard. I really thought they did a good job. We even had the girl bear guide from Svalbard.

I will ask the various expedition staff about your NW Passage trip. I imagine that would be a plum position.

Ralph and Marc - I popped into the expedition office and Robin West told me that while the staffing is in flux, that the roster on the silversea web site for the NW Passage is pretty accurate. He went through the list and confirmed most of them.

He said that Stefan Kredel would be the expedition leader, and also said that Robin Aiello would not be on your voyage.

There is big news from Silversea expeditions coming in Septemeber - rumor has it that they are going to add another expedition ship - so that may also add changes, but that is what I know so far.

What is NARWHAL? I must have missed that naming contest

And what is BEARS, or is that the one that's going on now?

Olivia, the Northwest Passage trip next year on Silversea Explorer "BEARS" was renamed a couple of months ago:

NARWHAL

"Nature Abounds in Remote Wilderness High Arctic Latitude."

Reasoning was that this would be only opportunity to have a Narwhal on a pin.

After two days at sea we are approaching Iqaluit on Baffin Island. This morning there is a face to passport check with Canadian authorities and other clearance formalities to be done, so we don't disembark for our afternoon excursion until after lunch. This will be a dry landing onto a jetty and then after our touring we take the zodiacs from a low tide site.

We had some terrific lectures over the past two days, a cooking demonstration by the very funny chef, recaps and briefings, and the Venetian Society party to keep us busy in between meals. I think the food has been uniformly terrific with lots of variety and some theme dinners such as Icelandic, Danish, etc. Service is great with many of the staff greeting us by name since the second or third day. The passengers are mixing well.

A big highlight over the past two nights has been the appearance of the northern lights/Aurora Borealis. The staff announces their appearance in the night over the PA, so you get up out of bed, throw on your parkas and go up on deck. Although we got some tips from Richard Sidey about how to photograph them, I have been leaving that to him and his mega equipment. At yesterday's Briefing he told us that he took 2,500 plus shots the night before, 32 gig worth, and showed us a montage of them plus a preview of the voyage video he is making, which of course is fabulous and makes me wonder why we are bothering to take photos at all.

VERY excited to hear the possibility of seeing the northern lights. That is something I will really enjoy. We were in Svalbard during summer solstice so it never got dark.

REALLY? the northern lights!! I had pretty much decided that we were not in the right time frame to see that. I too am very excited at this prospect. Thanks so much Leslie for taking your time to keep us posted. It sounds like you are having a grand trip.
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Helen

Ah, Iqaluit! What a day! Iqaluit was founded in 1942 as an American airbase and beefed up during the Cold War. The military left in 1963, the town remained a governmental administrative and logistical center and today is the territorial capital and largest community of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. About 8,000 people live there today and the population is growing, although none of us could really understand why people would choose to move here. It is only accessible by airplane, boat, dogsled and snowmobile. We mainly stopped there in order to clear Canadian formalities, which took a long time.

The wind kicked up to 40 knots prior to disembarkation via zodiacs in 3 groups. Disembarkation started late, maybe due to conditions, maybe due to Canadian red tape. The ship had to anchor a mile and a half from shore due to tides so it was a long, windy, choppy ride to shore. It took about 2 hours to get everyone ashore and many were soaked. Our zodiac driver, Chris, did a great job and we all remained dry, so he is your guy for heavy sea conditions. The landing site changed and it turned out to be a wet landing, which was OK since everyone was told to don their rubber boots and waterproof gear.

We were in the last group; once on shore we were told to walk over to their visitor center/ museum where our tour would commence in a half hour to 45 minutes!!! You can imagine that after all the waiting we had already done that this was not welcome news. So we trooped into the museum, removing our boots at the door.

A couple of minutes later a local guide came in and said the bus is leaving in 5 minutes. So we hopped on, only to realize we were now in Group B rather than C. Off we went for a drive around Iqaluit,with a stop at some old Hudson Bay company buildings on a beach, through Happy Valley, Tundra Valley, to the Apex, past the school, past the women's shelter,past the dump... Finally we were dropped off at a "park" for a final chance to stretch our legs for a half hour, and the bus took off.

It turned out that there were only 2 buses for 3 groups so everyone was left hanging at some point, but when the last bus arrived at the park there was a bit of an eager rush to get on for the ride back to the ship. We managed to be last off the ship and in the 2nd zodiac back so I would say we fared much better than those in group A who were first off, last back.

Photos later, photobucket is not responding.

Today and tomorrow we are searching for polar bears!

Iqaluit

The search for the polar bears was on today.

This morning we anchored off the Lower Savage Islands, a group,of small islands off the southeastern tip of Baffin Island, where polar bears spend the summer when stranded by the retreating of pack ice. It was cold and rainy, around 32 degrees when the first group,of zodiacs departed. We were in the 2nd group this morning and conditions were a bit better. We spotted a seal and had three polar bear sightings, probably two different bears during our 1 1/2 hour outing. The bears were high up on the rocky islands; the first was the easiest to focus the camera on before it moved up and away. The second was even higher up and not easy to photograph.











During lunch the ship repositioned to Nanook Harbor, a 2 mile deep inlet about 15 nautical miles away. The temperature continued to fall and the rain increased, making for a wet, cold afternoon. Fortunately we were in the first group this afternoon as now that we are back on board it looks a bit worse out there and is probably pretty freezing for the 2nd group who are out now between 4:15 and 5:45 PM. We spotted two bears high up on the rocky islands, somewhat obscured by rocks. The steady rain didn't help and we barely were able to get a shot that didn't look like a patch of snow.



We will have another chance for bears tomorrow during zodiac cruises off of Akpatok island.

Leslie, another question for you to ask Robin West:

Hanseatic left Friday from Kangerlussuaq and was going to follow you for a while and then transit Northwest Passage. Both it's webcam and position indicator show that it has been tied up at some dock in Greenland since Saturday afternoon. In Antarctica, Robin knew status of other ships in the area; I wonder if he would know if Hanseatic was having problems. Also, Bremen was in Cambridge Bay on Thursday but haven't seen any reports since; has it made it through the ice?

thanks,

Marc

PS Keep the photos coming!!!

Marc, yesterday morning while talking about bears and sea ice, our zodiac driver/naturalist Chris mentioned that while ice had been retreating, melting faster, that is not the case this year. He mentioned a Canadian expedition ship, that was supposed to do the NW Passage now, but it is blocked by ice so they are stuck in Greenland for the moment, with disgruntled passengers aboard.

I assume this is the case with other ships doing the passage as well. I will ask Robin about specifics. If that happens next year Chris said they would have to reposition the Explorer through the Panama Canal to catch up with the far eastern cruises that follow yours. Watch that ice!

Today's weather is a combo of yesterday's rain and the wind of two days ago. Ugh. This morning is supposed to be the best polar bear day as they are usually roaming a beach flanked by steep cliffs, but in these conditions getting photos will be pretty impossible. We are in the first group, supposed to go in an hour and a half, but plans may change.

And now for a couple of northern lights photos, taken by Frank a couple of nights ago.