2 October 2005:
Early Morning:
Sailing
the North Atlantic between Iceland and Greenland: We are still approaching Greenland. It looks like the plan will be to sail-by
the southern coast of Greenland and through Fredrikstad Sound this afternoon between 1pm and 4pm. So, more later on that if
the weather doesn’t cause us to cancel. We are still running into gale force winds and the seas are still at 18 feet
(very rough).
We went to Tequila’s Steakhouse last night. They had excellent
appetizers and some very good, very large steaks; a very nice change of pace from the normal dinning room. The only problem
was that it took us longer than expected to finish and by the time we were done the show that we had planned to go to was
a full house. Life conspires to make us spend too much time in the casino.
Late
Morning:
This morning we went up to Skywalker’s Lounge on the top deck to see if this would be a good spot to watch the coast
of Greenland during our sail-by later this afternoon. While we were up there, Commodore Ditel (henceforth to be known as Commodore
Girly-man) made another announcement. As soon as he identified himself, I told Pam this would not be good news. He started
out by reminding us of the rough seas and high, gale force winds….like we couldn’t tell….and then said
that since we continued to lose time on our schedule due to the winds and high seas, he would have to cancel the Greenland
coastal sail-by and the passage of Fredrikstad Sound and we would have to change course and head directly to St. John’s,
Newfoundland where, he hoped, we would be back on schedule. So, no sightings of snowcapped mountains or icebergs for us…..we’ll
continue on a southwesterly course towards Newfoundland and pass by Greenland well out to sea…..’cause Commodore
Girly-man couldn’t work up the speed last night to get us here on time.
We
have had some pretty spectacular waves. I’ve been watching the waves breaking on the bow of the ship and it sends water
12-14 stories into the air……not 12-14 feet….12-14 stories. We were out on the promenade deck this morning
and it was pretty windy, but not terrible on the protected side of the ship. When I tried walking forward to the bow I could
only get to within about 30 feet of the bow. I don’t mean that I might get wet so I stopped…..I mean that I was
walking as hard as I could and pulling myself along the railing and the wind was blowing so hard I could not move forward
against its pressure without my feet slipping out from under me. The good news is that for the first time in days the sky
has cleared and we have some sunshine.
Mid-Afternoon:
Commodore
Girly-man, true to form, did not take us by the icebergs. Just more open seas and semi-cloudy skies. The waves seemed to have
subsided a bit, but we still have a ‘drunken sailor’ walk going down the hallways. If the Commodore doesn’t
let us off the ship in St John’s he may have a mutiny.
Early Evening:
Elevators swing like a pendulum do….even though the seas are down compared to the last few days, the waves are still
pretty high. I was walking by the elevators this evening and I heard several loud banging noises. It was the elevator
cars banging against the elevator shafts….BANG, BONG, BANG…..and 3 or 4 very rattled passengers get off the
elevators.
Late
Evening:
Death Ship:
The scuttlebutt at dinner was that we had our first fatality on the ship today.
The reports are scattered and not entirely consistent with each other but it appears that someone died in the gym today. Depending
on the source of the information it was someone on the treadmill who had a heart attack (walked to death) or someone in the
hot tub who became dehydrated (boiled to death). In any event, it does seem that someone, who was a paying passenger yesterday,
is currently occupying the guest suite in the ship’s morgue tonight. This led to a lot of gallows-humor stories
for dinner, but no one had the energy to push it too far.
