As usual, we brought in the New Year
of 2015 at the home of our friends N & H.
Their guests included a combination of neighbors and friends, including
Diane and me and our neighbors Julie and Lydia.
The Monday of the second week, I reported for jury duty on a murder
trial. There was an unusually large pool
of 120 potential jurors. Several
screening questions were asked, one of which was whether we knew anyone
involved in the trial. I acknowledged
that I knew the judge even though I was sure that would disqualify me. She was a Democrat to whom I had donated
money for her retention election.
I was surprised that at the conclusion of
the questioning of jurors by the lawyers, the judge asked whether the issue of
homosexuality would present a problem for any of the prospective jurors. A woman I recognized as the Director of the School
of Music stood up and said it would be a problem for her. I knew there were a number of her faculty who
were gay, so it made me wonder how she dealt with them. Neither she nor I were chosen for the
jury. The trial concerned a gay man who
had been murdered. The defendant was
found guilty on Friday of that week, a short trial.
Early in February, Diane and I drove
to St. Louis to spend the night near the airport before starting our 30-hour plus
journey to Sydney, Australia. There we
would join Olivia’s Australia and New Zealand Cruise Odyssey on Holland
America’s MS Oosterdam. Although we had
been to both countries before, this trip would stop at the island of Tasmania
and we would also be able to visit the Hobbiton Movie Set in New Zealand. After a midday arrival in Sydney, we spent
the afternoon strolling around the harbor which was only a short distance from
our hotel. We had great views of the
Opera House and the Harbor Bridge. We
could easily see the many people who had booked a climbing trip up the arches.
Harbor and Opera House
Harbor and Bridge
View of Harbor Bridge with people climbing up it
The next day, we had reservations for a
morning tour of the Sydney Opera House. The guide provided the history and
descriptions of the architecture, materials and construction of both the interior
and the exterior. Even though the world
admires the outside beauty of the building, we gained an even better
appreciation of the structure after learning about its internal features.
A close look at the interior of the Opera
House
Our tickets also included lunch that was
served with vertical tiers of platters mounted in a stand that contained boiled
shrimp and salad, sliders, steamed dumplings and sushi, all served with ample
white wine. To walk it off, we took the
Royal Botanic Garden Harbor Walk where we found people and dogs availing
themselves of the outdoors while we enjoyed the fountains, statues, flowers and
other plantings. Before returning to our
hotel, we stopped at the Museum of Sydney and viewed the exhibits about local
history.
Lunch at Opera House
Royal Botanic Garden
I chose a restaurant for dinner that was
recommended for its fresh seafood, Fish at the Rocks. We walked there on a sidewalk that paralleled
an elevated highway under which the space was used for a variety of
purposes. One which fascinated us was a
soccer field, smaller than regulation size, but very busy.
Soccer field
Late the next morning we took a cab to the
White Bay Cruise Terminal where we boarded our ship. We unpacked, explored the ship, had an early
dinner seating and then enjoyed the Olivia Newton-John show on board. She grew up in Australia. The ship was at sea all the next day on its
way south to Tasmania. I used the time
to consider the movies we could reserve for the True/False Film Festival in
early March. This was the first time I
was not able to do my planning while working on my home computer. I had to pay for time to use the ship’s
computers. Its internet was very slow as
the signal was accessed by satellite dishes.
At this time, only the schedule of movies was available so I was using
pencil and paper to figure out what we might want to see, trying different
possibilities for the three and a half days.
At home, I would have been doing all of this using Excel
spreadsheets. That evening there was an
entertaining show by the comedian Karen Williams.
We reached the port of Hobart, Tasmania the next morning and left on our shore excursion. A motor coach took us through the Huon River Valley to the Tahune Forest where we walked along the paths in this old-growth forest while viewing very tall trees with wide girths. At the end of the path, we strolled almost half a mile through the tree canopy on an elevated walkway called the Air Walk. We rode back on the motor coach and reboarded the ship. I wasn’t sure the visit to Tasmania was worth the time spent.
Air Walk
We spent our last day aboard the ship exploring the rugged coastline of Western Greenland. While some people went ashore and took a long hike, Diane and I took a zodiac cruise along the shoreline enjoying the lively waterfalls. Others, for some reason I would never understand, went down to the ship’s lowest level where the crew set up a platform that allowed them to jump into the frigid arctic waters. One of the ship’s undersea specialists launched a remote-control vehicle to observe and photograph the marine life inhabiting the fjord floor. The images were shown later at our last cocktail hour briefing.
The
next morning, a motor coach took us to have a closer view of the Greenland
Icecap near the town of Kangerlussuaq. We
weren’t close enough for much of a view. Before dropping us off at the nearby airport,
we briefly toured the town. They stopped
for us to see some huskies. Unfortunately,
the dogs started fighting with each other, and it was not a good scene. Diane and I quickly re-entered the bus. The airport was very busy with long lines
everywhere. We were very happy to
finally board our chartered aircraft and fly to Ottawa, Canada where we spent
the night. On July 30, 2015, we flew to
Toronto and then to St. Louis where we met our MOX shuttle and were delivered
to our front door. Traveling with
National Geographic was always so interesting.
It made me remember why my father had subscribed to their magazine.
Closest view of a glacier
Me and Diane on the Air Walk in Tasmania
Soon the ship was under way for New Zealand
on the Tasmanian Sea. In fact, we were
going to be at sea the next two days. We
had great Olivia entertainment on the three nights we were at sea: Roxanna Ward
who plays the piano, sings and tells stories, Barbara Higbie who sings and plays
piano and violin and Sweet Baby J'ai who sings.
During the day, Olivia kept the guests busy with several entertaining
games including some in the swimming pool.
Pool games with “nun” Lisa Koch supervising
We finally arrived at the fiords of
New Zealand located in the southwest of the South Island, a mountainous area
known as Fiordland. Our ship sailed into
the area, joining several others. Many
of the guests stood out on the deck on a dreary misty day viewing the tall
cliffs and waterfalls. Fifteen years
earlier, Diane and I had taken a boat ride in one of these fjords, Milford
Sound. That day the weather was much nicer.
Even so, it was quite scenic both times.
New Zealand fjord
After
lunch, I spent the afternoon at the ship’s computers, working to reserve
tickets for Diane, my sister and myself for the True/False Film Festival. With the overcast weather, the internet was
slower than ever, but finally I was successful.
After dinner, it felt good to relax and enjoy a show featuring the New
Zealand entertainers the Topp Twins. We
had not seen these identical twins perform before with their usual show of
comedy and music.
The next morning, we entered the
harbor at Port Chalmers where we could see a large number of shipping
containers and a small fishing fleet. We
had not signed up for a shore excursion and decided to explore the area on our
own. We walked around the harbor and
then walked up the hill to a lovely restaurant for a lunch of fresh fish and
chips. Afterward, we visited the small
downtown, touring the city history museum and stopping for a cup of coffee at a
location that advertised free internet.
I had a new Galaxy tablet I could slide into a pocket of my back pack
and use in the ports free while on a cruise.
The night’s entertainment featured Lisa Koch. She was on many of our previous Olivia trips
and, as usual, sang a song with lyrics she made up about the places we had visited
so far.
Port Chalmers
Our next New Zealand port of call was
Christchurch. The area had a major
earthquake four years earlier (2011). Instead
of going into the city, we opted for a nature cruise in the nearby Akaroa Harbor. We visited the extinct Banks Peninsula
volcanic crater and saw many curious dolphins including the smallest in the
world, Hector’s dolphin. We also saw New
Zealand fur seals, coastal birds and scuba divers exploring the volcanic ruins. It felt good to be out in the open, enjoying
the sun and fresh breezes. The evening
performance was by a woman new to us, Beccy Cole, an Australian country music
singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Olivia women, including me, enjoying
nature
On our previous visit to New Zealand,
we did not stop at Wellington, the capital of New Zealand located on the
southern tip of the North Island. As the
ship came into port, we could see a vast number of logs waiting to be
shipped. Instead of doing a shore
excursion, we chose to take a shuttle from the port into town so we could visit
The Museum of New Zealand usually known as Te Papa (Māori for "the
treasure box"). It was an unusual
museum because it included five different major collections: art, history,
Māori taonga (cultural treasures), Pacific cultures, and natural history. The museum had recently added fiberglass
statues based on the digital models used in the Peter Jackson Hobbit film
trilogy made in New Zealand, like an Orc, an Elf Lieutenant and an Elf Soldier.
Orc
As we left the museum, we walked along the
harbor and watched the long-canoe crew races.
We stopped at the Crab Shack and had New Zealand mussels with a jar of
beer. Our evening entertainment featured
the trio of women: 1) Lisa Koch, Seattle singer/comedian and one-half of the
loony sketch-comedy duo Dos Fallopia; 2) Vickie Shaw, Texas comedian and
recovering SOB (Southern Baptist) who raised three kids as an out lesbian
mother; and 3) Roxanna Ward, demented pianist and cabaret comic. The three appeared together as the reclusive
Barstow Gay Men's Chorus. The next to
last day of the cruise, we were at sea all day on the way north and happy to
have the singer Teresa Trull entertain us in the evening. She (and her horses) had moved to New Zealand
from the U.S. in 2011.
Canoe race
Diane and I had been really looking
forward to the shore excursion on our last day. After about an hour’s drive
from the port of Tauranga we arrived at the location of the movie set used during
the filming of The Hobbit film series. A temporary set was built on the Alexander
farm when the filming of The Lord of the Rings series began in 1999 taking
only three months to film the Hobbiton scenes. Afterward the set was demolished, but when the
movies were released to enormous success, fans were keen to visit the
site. When Peter Jackson returned to
film The Hobbit trilogy in 2009, they decided to build a permanent set
of 44 Hobbit Holes and the Green Dragon Inn.
The Hobbit homes were built into the hillside with colorful doors,
gardens and gates. Careful attention was
paid to the smallest detail, including artificial leaves on a tree and a fake
head of cabbage. We enjoyed our lunch at
the Green Dragon pub and took away more fond memories of the Hobbits. The entertainer for our last night onboard was
Vickie Shaw.
Hobbiton
We left the ship and boarded a motor coach
early the next morning for a city tour and transfer to the Auckland airport. We chose this tour instead of a simple
transfer to the airport because our flight didn’t leave until evening. Our group stopped for a visit at the Auckland
Museum to see how it told the story of New Zealand, its place in the Pacific
and its people. The motor coach then
took us across the Auckland Harbor Bridge to the North Shore. Our destination was the Seven Stars
Restaurant at the tip of a peninsula that provided us with a great view of the
harbor and the skyline of downtown Auckland.
After stopping for a dessert of the very rich and tasty New Zealand ice cream,
we headed for the airport.
View of downtown Auckland and harbor
Because of the lengthy 22-hour travel
time from Auckland, we had decided to spend the night at the motel in St. Louis
where we had left our car. We arrived home
in Columbia on a Wednesday afternoon in late February. Less than a week later, we picked up my
sister from the Columbia airport for her annual True/False visit. Earlene’s stay was a short one this year. After the BOAT (Based on a True Story) conference
and the three and a half days of movies, she left midday the following Monday.
We then were able to get back into our
usual routine of Tai Chi at 8:30 on MWF, the gym on TThS, Muleskinners on
Friday noon, Osher classes, plays, concerts and movies. Diane’s jury duty later in March was
cancelled when the defendant and prosecutor agreed on a plea deal. Joe and Karen arrived from Denver for their
annual spring visit. I was busy working
with my friends on their federal and state income taxes. Diane and I were having friends over for
meals and going to their houses or out to restaurants in return.
We again wrote and sent out election
recommendations for the local April election and were pleased that the voters agreed
with us most of the time. However, I was
having feelings of fullness in my head that led to some dizziness and balance
issues. In particular, I was having a
lack of confidence while riding my bicycle on the trail. I had more fear of falling and actually did a
couple of times, although I was always very lucky to fall into a bush with
little damage except to my pride. I made
an appointment with an ENT doctor. He
prescribed triamterene/hctz and after several months there was improvement. He also wrote a prescription for physical
therapy to work on my balance. The
exercises didn’t seem to make any difference with my balance, but I finished
the appointments. Because of my poor
balance, my physical therapist also told me that it was not a question of whether
I was going to have a bad fall, but rather a question of when I would
have a bad fall on my bicycle. With that
said and my own current lack of enjoyment in riding, I decided to give my
bicycle to our massage therapist whose children could readily use it to ride to
school. Diane was not happy about my
stopping riding and declared that she would continue to ride by herself.
Diane’s sister Susan flew back for a
Columbia visit. We took her to see the
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas. She spent the rest of her time in Columbia visiting
with a local friend. Susan expressed an
interest in learning to play the piano, so Diane and I agreed to send her an
electronic keyboard and gave her the first workbook our piano teacher had given
Diane. We hoped that her young daughter might try to learn the keyboard as
well. Also in May, our medical student completed
her studies, and we attended a graduation party at her apartment, meeting her
boyfriend and parents. She was going to intern
in pediatrics at a Knoxville hospital.
In June, we missed a few concerts
early in the Hot Summer Nights symphony series because of a trip to Buffalo,
New York. We went there to attend a
conference sponsored by the Center for Free Inquiry (CFI) entitled Reason
for Change. The title was intended
to communicate the belief that science, reason and secularism could be positive
forces during change. I particularly
enjoyed the speakers on GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), alternative
medicine and climate change, as well as the talk by Richard Dawkins. He was a British evolutionary biologist and
author well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. We also enjoyed seeing again the woman we had
met at the Women in Secularism conference in Alexandria.
The next to last day, we had several
speakers: Stephen Law, a British philosopher and editor of Think, a
journal on secularism and superstition; Ronald A. Lindsay, executive director
of CFI on the future of the organization; and Tom Flynn on New York’s
Freethought Trail. In the afternoon, we went
across the border into Canada. We first
stopped at the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory, one of the largest
glass-enclosed butterfly conservatories in North America. It featured over 2,000 vibrantly colored butterflies
which fluttered above the winding pathways with lush vegetation and
waterfalls. It was the best of its kind
I had ever visited. We then proceeded to
lunch at a revolving restaurant overlooking Niagara Falls. We had time to observe the falls from many
viewpoints before returning to the U.S. to spend the night in Buffalo.
Butterflies
On the last day, we boarded a motor coach
and visited a few of the 185 marked and unmarked sites important to the history
of radical social reform in west-central New York State. We first visited the R. G. Ingersoll
Museum. He was a lawyer, writer and
orator during the mid-19th-century Golden Age of Freethought, who campaigned in
defense of agnosticism. After a luncheon
and wine tasting (we were in the wine producing area of New York), we visited
the home of the suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the nearby Women’s Rights
National Historical Park in Seneca Falls.
After dinner at the Belhurst Castle overlooking Seneca Lake, we returned
to Buffalo to spend the night before flying back to Columbia the next day.
We enjoyed the remainder of the Hot Summer
Nights events including the one for Chair Sponsons. But the most exiting happening was on June 26
when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that because
the fundamental right to marry extended to same-sex couples, same-sex marriage
bans were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision
rendered same-sex marriage legal throughout the entire United States including
Missouri. In anticipation of this, Diane
had arranged for the ACLU to be prepared to have a staff member come to
Columbia and for press coverage of the first gay couple (actually two lesbians)
married at the Boone County Courthouse.
We and several of our friends, like Larry and Carl and our neighbors, Julie
and Lydia, were on hand to be interviewed as well. It was also a good opportunity for Democrats
running in next year’s election to make speeches.
In late June, I transferred my last four
municipal bonds from Wells Fargo to a Vanguard account. The other bonds had all been called by the
issuers and only these four remained. I
could then close the Wells Fargo account, leaving only one brokerage company
with which to deal. Life was getting
simpler.
In mid-July, we flew to Keflavik
International Airport in Iceland to join the National Geographic trip entitled Along
the Viking Trail: from Iceland to Greenland. As usual, Diane and I took the opportunity to
sign up for the extended Iceland pre-tour.
In preparation, I read Frozen Out by Quentin Bates. It was a police procedural thriller featuring
female Officer Gunnhildur. The book was set in 2008 Iceland, just as its
financial meltdown began.
We arrived in Keflavik quite early in the
morning and our departure for the north of the island didn’t leave until the
afternoon, so the guide who greeted us took us on a brief tour. We first walked around a park named
Stekkjarkot where there were turf houses that showed how people in Iceland
lived at the end of the 19th century. We
could peek inside to get a glimpse of Icelandic life at that time. We then went on to the Viking World Museum
where we saw a statue of Hrafna Floki, the first Norseman to intentionally sail
to Iceland, as well as Íslendingur, a replica of the Viking ship that sailed
across the Atlantic Ocean in 2000.
Turf House
Hrafna Floki
Our guide then took us into downtown Reykjavik to see a statue of Lief Erikson. He is probably the best-known hero of Viking-age
Iceland and the first European to arrive in North America (probably on the East
coast of Canada). His voyage in the year 1000 preceded the voyage by Christopher
Columbus by roughly half a millennium.
The statue stands in front of the Hallgrimskirkja Church, a Lutheran
parish church, the largest church in Iceland and among the tallest structures
in the country. It is known for its
distinctively curved spire and side wings.
We went inside, and I saw that it had a large pipe organ. I spied a leaflet that announced an organ recital
the following Sunday when we would be back in Reykjavik, and I hoped we would
be able to attend. Our motor coach drove
us up the highest hill in Reykjavik for views of the city and surrounding area
and then back down to Café Loki for lunch.
We had our introduction to Icelandic brown (or light rye) bread and were
told it was best eaten with a mountain of fresh butter. After lunch, our coach delivered us to the
domestic airport for the flight north to the town of Akureyri which sits in the
base of a fjord. Once there, we checked
into the Hotel Kea.
Statue of Lief Erikson in front of church
Reykjavik with church on the left
In the morning, we drove past the base of
the fjord and on to the magnificent Godafoss waterfall fed by glacial
waters. Our group wasn’t the only one
there to take pictures and admire its beauty.
We then drove along Lake Myvatn whose geothermal waters are a sanctuary
for bird life. We saw many Eider ducks,
the only species in Iceland, and some large snow geese. We stopped briefly at a village on the shores
of the lake to view a church surrounded by lava. We were told that during the Krafla eruption
in 1727, there was a two-year period of volcanic activity sending streams of
lava toward the lakeshore. In August
1729 the flow plowed through the village, destroying farms and buildings, but
the wooden church was spared. The lava parted, missing the church by only yards.
Godafoss
Lake Myvatn with ducks and geothermal area
in the background
As if this day wasn’t exciting enough, we
came to the Hverir geothermal area under the
Namafjall mountain that belongs in the Krafla volcano fissure zone. At a depth of over a half mile, the
temperature is about 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The water that flows below the
surface is quickly heated and comes back to the surface transformed into steam
containing hydrogen sulfide that causes the characteristic smell of rotten
eggs. There were also bubbling mud
pools, steam vents and a bare orangey-red landscape. As there were few paths, we were free to just
walk around the area. The Krafla
geothermal power station was nearby with its two large turbines generating
electricity. We ate lunch at the
Vogafjós Cowshed Restaurant. A staff member came outside and showed us the
holes in the ground that were warm enough for them to bake the brown bread they
served in the restaurant.
Hverir geothermal area
Holes where bread in white buckets is
placed for baking
As we drove back to our lodging, we
went through an area consisting of huge lava rock formations called Dimmuborgir
where the Icelandic Yule lads live.
These merry, but mischievous, fellows are rumored to take turns visiting
kids on the 13 nights leading up to Christmas. Hearing this story reminded me of the tale our
local guide told us after picking us up at the airport. She said the majority of Icelanders (like her)
believe in, or at least refuse to deny the existence of elves, trolls and other
hidden beings. Icelanders have a rich
storytelling tradition and stories about elves and hidden people are part of
their heritage. We continued on driving
by pseudo craters formed by gas explosions when boiling lava flowed over the
wetlands. The craters are a popular site for birdwatchers and are protected as
a natural wetland conservation area. We
arrived back at our hotel after a wonderful day exploring the unusual natural
beauty of Iceland.
Dimmuborgir
Trolls
In the morning, we flew back to
Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and checked into the Centrum Hotel. Our local guide took us to see the Albingi
Parliament House, the oldest current legislature in the world. The Black Cone Monument to Civil Disobedience stands
in front of the building. It was inspired
by the Pots and Pans Revolution, the protests that took place between 2009 and
2011 in the wake of the Icelandic financial crisis and the government’s poor
handling of the situation. Considered
the largest-scale protests in Icelandic history at the time, thousands of people
gathered before the parliament and demanded changes to the old system. Iceland
is one of the most gender equal countries in the world, and a woman is often
the president or prime minister.
Black Cone Monument
Back in the city, we saw a film about
volcanoes in Iceland at the Volcano House.
It featured a story about Eldfell, a volcanic cone over 660 feet high on
the island of Heimaey which is just south of the mainland. The cone formed
during a volcanic eruption which began with no warning on January 23, 1973. The name means Hill of Fire in Icelandic. The eruption caused a major crisis for the
island and led to its temporary evacuation. Volcanic ash fell over most of the
island, destroying around 400 homes, and a lava flow threatened to close off
the harbor, the island's main income source via its fishing fleet. Because of severe storms in the days before
the eruption, almost the entire fishing fleet was in the harbor, a stroke of
luck which greatly assisted the organization of the rapid evacuation. The population was alerted to the situation by
fire engines sounding their sirens, and gathered by the harbor with just the
small number of possessions they were able to carry. Within six hours of the onset of the eruption,
almost all of the 5,300 people of the island were safely on the mainland.
In the afternoon, we could have gone to the
Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa, but instead we walked to the Hallgrimskirkja
Church to attend the Sunday organ concert.
It featured Dexter Kenned from the U.S., the previous year’s winner of
the Chartres International Organ Competition, “the Olympics of the organ.” We arrived early and took front row seats so
we could watch him play the four keyboards, pedals and 72 stops. The acoustics were great. Afterward, we were able to speak to the
organist and thank him for a wonderful concert.
We then met some of our fellow travelers at the Fishmarket Restaurant
for fresh seafood. I dipped my tasty langoustine
in butter, and the seafood melted in my mouth.
Organ
We were joined at breakfast the next day by
the new arrivals who did not participate in the pre-trip. All of us boarded a
motor coach that drove to the Fridheimar Farm.
We had a wonderful tour of their greenhouses known for growing tomatoes all
year round in a very efficient manner. Inexpensive
electric lighting was used to supplement natural sunlight when necessary. Carbon dioxide from natural steam was used to
stimulate photosynthesis. Volcanic
pumice was included as a stable ingredient in the growing media. Biological controls were used instead of
pesticides, and bumble bees were used for pollination. Everything was automated, for example, the soil
was monitored for moisture content to determine the amount of irrigation water
needed.
The farm also bred Icelandic horses, and we
saw a show performed mainly by the young children of the family. Icelandic horses are a very special breed. Horses usually have four natural gaits: walk,
trot, canter and gallop. In addition to
these, the Icelandic horse has a smooth and desirable gait called Tölt and a
faster gait called Flying pace. This
breed of horse has other unique qualities. It is smaller and sturdier and also notably
more intelligent and social. This is
said to be because early settlers could only bring their very best animals. Importing more horses is forbidden in
Iceland. Therefore, all horses are
descendants of these early special ones. The young children had been well trained in
riding, even standing up on the backs of the horses. This was an excellent stop, both informative
and entertaining.
Family children who performed on Icelandic
horses
Next, we joined the large crowd at Gullfoss
Falls before going on to the Geysir Hot Springs to watch the regular eruptions. We visited the Thingvellir National Park, the
open-air site of the ancient Parliament.
It met here from about 930 to 1798, but it was abolished by decree of
the Danish crown in 1800. The Park also
contained an incredible exposure of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. In the oceans to
the north and south of Iceland, the ridge lies one and a half miles below the
surface, forming a rift that separates the North American plate from the
Eurasian plate. The rift spreads apart at a rate of almost an inch/year. There are actually two rift zones in Iceland,
and I was walking around in the Western rift.
I straddled it, having one leg on each plate, one side of me being
pulled toward the North American continent and the other being pulled toward
Europe. However, I would have to stand there a long time before I felt the
pull. As we returned to Reykjavik on a road by the harbor, we saw a modern
sculpture of a Viking ship called The Sun Voyager. Then our ship came into view, the National Geographic Explorer, where we would sleep for
the next seven nights.
Gullfoss Falls
Geysir Hot Springs
Thingvellir National Park
National Geographic Explorer
All of us ate breakfast in a hurry the next
day and went out on deck to watch for species of birds as we headed for the
West Coast of Iceland. The first birds
we saw in the water were the expected razorbills. We sailed past the immense Latrabjarg cliffs,
the westernmost point of Iceland and home to a huge population of
razorbills. The cliffs are an area once
famous for egg collecting; the men were tied to ropes and lowered like spiders
down on the ledges.
Latrabjarg cliff bird colony
We then continued to Flatey Island, a
trading post for many centuries, and were taken on a guided walking tour. A small white church was the most prominent
landmark, and its steeple marked the highest point on the island. The interior of the church was decorated by
the painter Baltasar Samper with scenes of the island’s past including fishermen
and farmers. We walked through the
church cemetery to read the old tombstones. The meadows had some pretty wildflowers and we
saw more birds, like the arctic tern, a female mallard duck with ducklings and
(while on the zodiac taking us back to the ship) a puffin.
Flatey Island
Painting in church
Arctic tern
Following in the wake of Eric the Red and
Brendan the Navigator, the next day our ship crossed the Denmark Strait on our
way to Greenland. Since it was a day at
sea, we took the opportunity to visit the ship’s bridge where we could examine
the maps and navigational equipment including the sonar used for detecting
icebergs. We spent some time on the deck
keeping an eye out for whales and saw that we were followed by dolphins and pilot
whales, including three young calves.
Ship’s radar
After three nights and two full days on
board, I could enthusiastically say we were very happy with our ship and room. Our previous trips with National
Geographic/Lindblad had been on ships which could accommodate fewer guests: the
Sea Bird on the Columbia River with 62 guests and the chartered barge in
Holland with 32-35 guests. The Explorer
had a capacity of 148 guests; still not a really big ship. As usual, we had chosen a cabin in the
middle, both bow to stern and top to bottom deck. Our cabin was in the middle of three rooms
nestled off the biggest pathway, so it was very quiet. It was an easy walk to the restaurant, up one
flight to the lounge, and down one or two flights when leaving the ship. All meals were open seating, so we met a
large number of people, but quickly discovered the ones with whom we best
communicated and sought them out. There
was no charge for wine or drinks.
In the late afternoon, there was always a
program in the lounge with drinks, hors d'oeuvres and talks by the ship’s crew
reviewing all we had seen and done that day.
There were specialists on flora, sea life, history and so forth who
showed photographs and gave appropriate background information. On days at sea, we had a daytime lecture by a
guest that National Geographic invited on the trip. They also brought college students on these
trips to stimulate their interests. I
loved it. We even met a couple from our
home town of Columbia, MO, a medical doctor and his wife.
Each night while we were at dinner, the
cabin steward lowered a heavy blind over our port window to keep out the nearly
constant daylight at this latitude. When
I raised it the next morning, I was surprised to see the sea full of ice. The captain announced that we would not be sailing
into their first choice of fjord’s today because there was class C ice across its
mouth, and our ship was not equipped to sail through this class of ice. The Greenland Ice Sheet, roughly 80% of the
surface of Greenland, is the second largest ice body in the world, after the
Antarctic Ice Sheet.
What I saw out the window
We saw and sailed around some very
beautiful large icebergs. More to our
liking, it was announced that we were going to spend another day at sea sailing
around looking for whales. We were not
disappointed. We saw ones with which we
were familiar like the killer whale and the humpback whale, but more
impressively we saw the small minke whale, the fin whale (the second largest) and
the blue whale which is the largest animal known to have ever existed. We were so thrilled that during the day the
ship found and followed some of the largest species of whales we would ever see. This day alone was worth the price of the
trip.
Iceberg
Whale sizes
In the morning, we could see land in the
distance and still many icebergs and ice floes.
We entered Prins Christian Sund, a major fjord on the southern coast of
Greenland that is surrounded by mountain pinnacles and glaciers. The ship anchored off Nanortalik, Greenland's
most southerly town and we rode zodiacs to shore. We walked to a little church where a native
women’s chorus sang a song for us in their language. No big organ, just a basic wooden four-octave
keyboard.
Nanortalik
Chorus
Organ
Next, we walked to an auditorium where the
young people entertained us with a traditional dance. They laughed and had fun. Afterward, we walked through their open-air
museum which provided examples of life from known settlement time to the late
20th century. The buildings were original or convincing replicas with different
themes. There were carvings, clothing, photos, boats and kayaks as well as
examples of daily work and home life. It gave us a good sense of the history of
the town.
Young people dancing
Equipment for processing whale blubber
Our next stop was at Hvalsey or Qaqortukulooq
(in Greenlandic). It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the site of
Greenland's largest, best-preserved Norse ruins. According to the Icelandic Book of
Settlements, this farmstead was established by Erik the Red's uncle in the late
10th century. In the 14th century, the
site belonged to the Kings of Norway and included a church that served the area
and a large farmstead on the flat land between the sea and the rocky hills. There was a pier where our zodiacs let us
off. From there, we had to walk up
uneven grass turf which made me glad I had my walking stick. We had time to
explore the area and listen to talks by the ship’s historian at the ruins of
two stone great halls. There were ruins
of an additional 14 homes close to a church house. The old hall was in the
middle of the ruins. The newer hall was well-preserved. Our lecturer provided
theories about why the site was abandoned, including bad weather resulting in
lost crops and unproductive land.
Hvalsey great hall
The ship then continued to Qaqortoq, the
largest city in Southern Greenland.
Inhabited since Norse times, the Scandinavian influence was still
apparent in the colorful wooden buildings and town museum, displaying
Greenlandic kayaks, hunting equipment, art and crafts. We walked through the town and saw boulders
and lichen-covered rocks with carvings of whales, faces and other traditional
designs. It was like a permanent open-air art gallery. A local artist oversaw the creation of many
separate carvings and sculptures including some made out of local boulders,
while others looked more like re-creations of ancient tribal markings of fish
and whales. Together these stone-works
are a citywide work of art known as Stone & Man.
Qaqortoq
Rock carvings
We sailed into Eriksfjord, the area Erik
the Red chose for his farm when he settled here in 982 AD. There was no pier, so the ship’s crew brought
a small bridge that we walked over from our zodiac to land. We explored two buildings, a chapel and a
longhouse. Brattahlid was the site of
the first Christian church in the western hemisphere. According to legend, Erik's son, Leif the
Lucky, introduced Christianity to Greenland. Erik himself did not become a Christian, but
his wife did. She built a church but had
it sited some distance from the farmstead so as not to antagonize Erik. A reconstruction of her really small chapel
stood near the original site along with a replica of a Viking longhouse. Brattahlid had some of the best farmland in
Greenland, owing to its location at the inner end of fjord, which protected it
from the cold foggy weather and arctic waters of the outer coast. This region was also the starting point of
the first voyages to North America by his son, Leif Eriksson, 500 years before
Columbus.
Bridge to shore
Small chapel
Flat farmland
The next day we visited Nuuk, the world’s
smallest capital city and the largest city of Greenland, a constituent country
of the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland’s residents
are citizens of Denmark. Nuuk is both
the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic center. It
has many tall and modern buildings. We visited
the National Museum with its famous 15th-century “Greenland” mummies that were
the subject of a National Geographic cover story.
Nuuk
Mummies
We spent our last day aboard the ship
exploring the rugged coastline of Western Greenland. While some people went ashore and took a long
hike, Diane and I took a zodiac cruise along the shoreline enjoying the lively
waterfalls. Others, for some reason I
would never understand, went down to the ship’s lowest level where the crew set
up a platform that allowed them to jump into the frigid arctic waters. One of the ship’s undersea specialists launched
a remote-control vehicle to observe and photograph the marine life inhabiting
the fjord floor. The images were shown
later at our last cocktail hour briefing.
The
next morning, a motor coach took us to have a closer view of the Greenland
Icecap near the town of Kangerlussuaq. We
weren’t close enough for much of a view. Before dropping us off at the nearby airport,
we briefly toured the town. They stopped
for us to see some huskies. Unfortunately,
the dogs started fighting with each other, and it was not a good scene. Diane and I quickly re-entered the bus. The airport was very busy with long lines
everywhere. We were very happy to
finally board our chartered aircraft and fly to Ottawa, Canada where we spent
the night. On July 30, 2015, we flew to
Toronto and then to St. Louis where we met our MOX shuttle and were delivered
to our front door. Traveling with
National Geographic was always so interesting.
It made me remember why my father had subscribed to their magazine.
Closest view of a glacier
