Two weeks on the Navigator, from Montreal to Reykjavik

[Joanandjoe]

Keep up the reporting - it has been quite interesting. Also interesting is how your itinerary tracks prior and future cruises for us. Montreal, Quebec City, Saguenay, Charlottetown (which you missed), Corner Brook, & St. John's have all been visited on our past cruises. Reykjavik (where we spent a week in 1996), Nuuk, Paamiut, and St. John's (again) will all be on our 2019 Navigator cruise from Amsterdam to NYC. Only the other 2 Greenland ports are on your cruise but not on any of ours.

 

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

[Fletcher]

PAMMIUT, GREENLAND

Pammiut was a pleasant surprise. We arrived in murky weather which never improved and it was the coldest day of the cruise. There were lots of icebergs in the area which dotted the horizon. One small one, close to the town, was bright blue, just like my nose.

We tendered ashore and strolled around. It was obvious that this was a far more cohesive community than yesterday’s Nuuk where there were obvious affluent houses and the commie blocks. Nuuk clearly had various social levels. There were even a few BMWs and a latest model Ford Mustang. In Pammiut everyone seemed to be living in very basic conditions, whether they were in houses or Stalinist-style blocks. On the heights there were three huge blocks called Canada, Alaska and Siberia, linked by wooden walkways. Washing hung from the broken balconies. The wooden houses were all in some form of dereliction with broken windows, rubbish everywhere, bits of cars, fishing stuff, rust and tangle. Were it not for the people walking about you might think this place had been abandoned, like an old whaling station.

There were amenities - a large astroturfed football pitch and a building containing an indoor tennis court, bowling alley and so on. The best building was the church, Norwegian-style, a 100 years old, made of wood with a gorgeous, jewel-like interior lit by mini chandeliers.

The people were brown and wind-blasted in that characteristic Inuit way. Inuit is of course the current word for the people we used to call Eskimo which means ‘raw meat eaters.’ That was thought to be a bit of a slur on them so they became Inuit. But like them I am very partial to carpaccio.

Anyway, Paamiut’s folk were going about their lives in ways that we all do - kids were playing on a swing, mothers were going home with shopping, a family were having a hot drink outside the supermarket. They were friendly, sort of, and didn’t mind having their photographs taken. I am pretty brazen and fearless about that sort of thing. The kids on the swing, all of them about seven, seemed to have lost most of their teeth. They were wearing rags. No one, not a soul, appeared to be doing any kind of job. Seeing Pammiut was a glimpse into survival.

We went back to the tender, to our warm and luxurious world on the Navigator, both excited and numbed by the experience. Everyone we spoke to said roughly the same thing - How can people live here?

We have lately taken to having every dinner in Compass Rose. We like the room, we like the menu, we like the food and we like the company. Most of all we like the unbridled conversation. Tonight it was four Brits against two Americans. The chat started with golf and then headed to cruise stuff, countries visited, then the movie Dunkirk, then Churchill’s speeches versus Trump’s Tweets, then a long discussion about the slave trade. One of our number, an American, talking about slavery and leaders’ need to apologise for it, used the phrase ‘get over it.’ It was the way things were. Like whaling, I thought. It was the way things were.

Tomorrow we are in a town called Quack-quack, as I call it. I want to take a tour not offered by the ship. It depends on the weather, the mood we are in. This cruise has turned into quite a challenging trip. And I like that a lot.

[Noggins]

PAMMIUT, GREENLAND

Pammiut was a pleasant surprise. We arrived in murky weather which never improved and it was the coldest day of the cruise. There were lots of icebergs in the area which dotted the horizon. One small one, close to the town, was bright blue, just like my nose.

We tendered ashore and strolled around. It was obvious that this was a far more cohesive community than yesterday’s Nuuk where there were obvious affluent houses and the commie blocks. Nuuk clearly had various social levels. There were even a few BMWs and a latest model Ford Mustang. In Pammiut everyone seemed to be living in very basic conditions, whether they were in houses or Stalinist-style blocks. On the heights there were three huge blocks called Canada, Alaska and Siberia, linked by wooden walkways. Washing hung from the broken balconies. The wooden houses were all in some form of dereliction with broken windows, rubbish everywhere, bits of cars, fishing stuff, rust and tangle. Were it not for the people walking about you might think this place had been abandoned, like an old whaling station.

There were amenities - a large astroturfed football pitch and a building containing an indoor tennis court, bowling alley and so on. The best building was the church, Norwegian-style, a 100 years old, made of wood with a gorgeous, jewel-like interior lit by mini chandeliers.

The people were brown and wind-blasted in that characteristic Inuit way. Inuit is of course the current word for the people we used to call Eskimo which means ‘raw meat eaters.’ That was thought to be a bit of a slur on them so they became Inuit. But like them I am very partial to carpaccio.

Anyway, Paamiut’s folk were going about their lives in ways that we all do - kids were playing on a swing, mothers were going home with shopping, a family were having a hot drink outside the supermarket. They were friendly, sort of, and didn’t mind having their photographs taken. I am pretty brazen and fearless about that sort of thing. The kids on the swing, all of them about seven, seemed to have lost most of their teeth. They were wearing rags. No one, not a soul, appeared to be doing any kind of job. Seeing Pammiut was a glimpse into survival.

We went back to the tender, to our warm and luxurious world on the Navigator, both excited and numbed by the experience. Everyone we spoke to said roughly the same thing - How can people live here?

We have lately taken to having every dinner in Compass Rose. We like the room, we like the menu, we like the food and we like the company. Most of all we like the unbridled conversation. Tonight it was four Brits against two Americans. The chat started with golf and then headed to cruise stuff, countries visited, then the movie Dunkirk, then Churchill’s speeches versus Trump’s Tweets, then a long discussion about the slave trade. One of our number, an American, talking about slavery and leaders’ need to apologise for it, used the phrase ‘get over it.’ It was the way things were. Like whaling, I thought. It was the way things were.

Tomorrow we are in a town called Quack-quack, as I call it. I want to take a tour not offered by the ship. It depends on the weather, the mood we are in. This cruise has turned into quite a challenging trip. And I like that a lot.

 

 

How often do we get a 'live report' / cruise review that properly makes you think, makes you smile and generally adds to your knowledge?

I too have been thoroughly enjoying riding along with Fletcher. Being a Brit it is no problem following the tongue in cheek bits and the properly humorous bits. I am guessing it is a little more challenging for some others?!

I was planning to do a 'live from' on our next cruise in November but as I won't match this standard of writing I am not sure I will!!

[ronrick1943]

How often do we get a 'live report' / cruise review that properly makes you think, makes you smile and generally adds to your knowledge?

I too have been thoroughly enjoying riding along with Fletcher. Being a Brit it is no problem following the tongue in cheek bits and the properly humorous bits. I am guessing it is a little more challenging for some others?!

I was planning to do a 'live from' on our next cruise in November but as I won't match this standard of writing I am not sure I will!!

 

I'm an American and I get it---if someone doesn't so what, people need to enjoy life while you can. On your November cruise be sure to write-I think a live report is great as long as you tell it the way you see it. Enjoy your trip--we'll be cruising this November also and looking forward to the cruise. Rick

[Travelcat2]

How often do we get a 'live report' / cruise review that properly makes you think, makes you smile and generally adds to your knowledge?

I too have been thoroughly enjoying riding along with Fletcher. Being a Brit it is no problem following the tongue in cheek bits and the properly humorous bits. I am guessing it is a little more challenging for some others?!

I was planning to do a 'live from' on our next cruise in November but as I won't match this standard of writing I am not sure I will!!

 

Please do post on your November cruise. Writing style really doesn't matter. We have had groups of CC'ers on a cruise --all posting on the same thread which is wonderful since you get perspectives from several people. Fletcher does have a great writing style - even if some of us in the U.S. don't understand everything -- for instance, I have no clue what a large astroturfed football pitch" is but it doesn't really matter. (I do know that "football" is likely not the same as what we have in the U.S.).

I'm going to post live from the Mariner (boarding tomorrow) but it will be boring to many posters as my focus will be on photos of the ship before refurbishment and maybe a discussion of the "Artful Traveler" program that many find particularly interesting.

[1982CruzStart]

How often do we get a 'live report' / cruise review that properly makes you think, makes you smile and generally adds to your knowledge?

I too have been thoroughly enjoying riding along with Fletcher. Being a Brit it is no problem following the tongue in cheek bits and the properly humorous bits. I am guessing it is a little more challenging for some others?!

I was planning to do a 'live from' on our next cruise in November but as I won't match this standard of writing I am not sure I will!!

 

Please post. I love reading about everyone's adventures.

[Kinkajou]

We did a similiar cruise on Oceania in July. Extremely happy that we missed the Fiord Boat Tour & Whale Watching excursion. It was too rough for the tenders to operate in the AM, so the tour was cancelled. We went onshore in the afternoon, and the ship stayed in Nuuk overnight. We would have had dinner at one of Nuuk’s elegant restaurants, but the last tender that night was at 7 PM. ;)

 

 

Fletcher, enjoying your posts very much.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Kinkajou
get rid of "t" before "a"

[poss]

Hey, Tc: Bon Voyage! May everything be wonderful, weather-wise and all sorts of other wise.

[mysty]

Fletcher, thanks for the play by play! We have friends on this cruise so it is great fun to follow along! Your style, delivery and wit remind me of Michael Buerk. I sincerely hope you take that as the compliment it was intended to be! Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

[Travelcat2]

Hey, Tc: Bon Voyage! May everything be wonderful, weather-wise and all sorts of other wise.

 

Thanks poss! My boring blog will start once I get onboard.

[Fletcher]

QAQORTOQ, GREENLAND

A clear sky, bright sunshine and craggy mountains greeted us this morning. By mid-morning the temperature had climbed so high that I would have believed the Navigator had returned to its place of registry, Nassau in the Bahamas. It was that hot and this was Greenland. Greenland isn’t supposed to be like this. At this rate Greenland will be growing pineapples and New Yorkers will be going to work by kayak.

The town of Qaqortoq sits in a sheltered bay and presents a scene of multi-coloured houses. Many of them look prefabricated as if they had been bought from Ikea. You might say that this is Greenland’s answer to Portofino or Tenby in Wales.

From the ship it looks smart and orderly, unlike Paamiut and Nuuk. And when you step ashore it’s only just a little less orderly. There is obviously money here. There are people walking, everyone seems to be smoking, there are kids at school, there is activity in the harbour, they makes clothes from seal fur, there is construction going on, there is a modern hotel with a steakhouse, a helicopter comes and goes. The helicopter is currently Qaqortoq’s only real door to the world but we saw the site of a new airport. The plan is to run direct flights to Denmark.

By the pier there is a souvenir shop and a tour company called Greenland Sagalands. We had been in touch with them by email about taking a boat trip up a fjord to visit an ancient church called Hvalsey. I had seen this trip offered by various cruise ships but not the Navigator. Our lecturer, Michael Scott, knows about this church but had not been there. Our Cruise Director, Jamie, had never heard of it and neither had the destination staff. That didn’t surprise me at all, though there was a reference to it in the ship’s Passages sheet.

What did surprise me was that no other passengers were interested in this trip. Their loss was our gain, of course, as we had the place to ourselves plus a Danish man who was staying in Qaqortoq with Danish friends who were working in the town hospital on a two-month stint.

At 1pm a smart little boat showed up and took us off down a majestic fjord. We saw icebergs and a solitary brown fish eagle. We passed by an experimental agricultural station - they are growing potatoes and planting trees as well as farming sheep. After 40 minutes we arrived at the foot of a massive mountain and there was this extraordinary little ruined church. Just the apse remained, about 20 feet high. The remains of two other buildings could be seen, part of a homestead with areas for livestock and a circular meeting house. Now let me say all this was built about 1300AD by Norse settlers. We have stuff like this in the UK, and much earlier, but for Greenland it is exceptional and the church is one of the first churches built by Europeans in North America. Last month the whole site was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

As we wandered around the site we suddenly became aware of a buzzing noise. It was a drone, flying above the church, round and round, sounding like a giant wasp. And when we got back on the boat the skipper pulled out his iPad and showed us the pictures his drone had taken. Well, I was stunned by the quality of his aerial images and felt rather useless with my pathetic Canon camera. I want a drone and I want one right now!

We had a table for two tonight in Compass Rose. They served calves liver, one of our favourites, and difficult to source at home. We watched a nearby table for ten. Many spent their entire time on their phones, twiggling their fingers in a texting frenzy. If you want to send a message to the person sitting next to you, send a text to someone else. Someone miles away.

Qaqortoq was our last footfall in Greenland. Tomorrow we have a sightseeing sail through Prince Christian Sound and then we head off to Iceland and the flight home.

 

[forgap]

Oh, Fletcher, how I LOVE your posts! We have similar sensibilities, so I appreciate your perspective on things. Keep it up!

[poss]

Terrific, Fletcher. Greatly appreciated.

[Zqueeze1]

Well done, Fletcher. Hope you cruise again soon so we can enjoy your writing.

 

Jackie: enjoy your cruise and looking forward to your "live from" posts.

Z and TB

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[liptastic]

Fletcher I will miss your daily posts, and I am sure others will agree there.

Your style of writing is a delight to read, and the humour very welcome.

Enjoy the reminder of your cruise and thanks for taking us along with you.

Safe travels. Jean.

[Mudhen]

WOO HOO! What a great report! Sounds like it was a great day! Please continue to post as we're enjoying every entry!

[ronrick1943]

Thanks for the ride, until next time. Safe travels home and stay healthy for your next cruise or Holiday!

[Fletcher]

FAREWELL FROM THE GREENLAND SEA

I’m pleased to close this diary of our cruise on the Seven Seas Navigator with news of an absolutely stunning transit of Prince Christian Sound in southern Greenland. This Sound slices off a corner of Greenland with islands on the starboard side and the mainland on the port side.

This was without doubt one of the greatest cruising days in our experience. The landscape was impossibly grand, the sort that demands applause or a fanfare of massed trumpets. On both sides sheer rock towered above us, cracked and gaunt, laced with waterfalls and glaciers. Little fjords veered away from the main channel, creating a maze of geological stress. The Navigator ducked and weaved around innumerable icebergs sculpted into startling shapes. It was bright sun and warm and many wore shorts and polo shirts.

This show lasted from morning coffee, to breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. And then, suddenly, we were out into the open ocean. We had sailed from the Labrador Sea to the Greenland Sea and now we are headed north-east to Iceland.

As this is my last diary entry for this voyage, I should perhaps summarise our experience. It was an unusual cruise for us as we normally do warm weather - the South Pacific or the Caribbean, for instance. The odd thing is that the Arctic has been incredibly warm. It was 65 degrees in Greenland yesterday with no wind chill factor.

We also normally do small expedition ships of about 100 passengers, but we are now coming round to larger ships like Navigator. They have more deck space, the cabins are larger, the food is better and more varied. But the Navigator has given us the sort of experience you get with an expedition ship. We have gone to rarely visited places, like St Pierre & Miquelon. Greenland was the undoubted highlight, memorable in so many ways.

There has been an excellent onboard lecturer. We have gone puffin and whale watching, though one of the disappointments of this cruise has been the paucity of wildlife. That can happen to any ship, of course. But we learned today that the Silversea Explorer failed to get through the Prince Christian Sound only a few weeks ago.

The Navigator has several failings. We really did miss not having a forward observation lounge and a proper observation deck. That golf course on Deck 12 is seriously awful. Lots of people were up there today, gawping at the scenery and stepping over the stupid golf stuff. We thought the Veranda restaurant was cramped and there weren’t enough tables outside. We thought Prime 7 was gloomy. Compass Rose was perfectly OK. The vibration is of course a major issue and probably why I would not go on the ship again.

Service levels were high right across the board though not as personalised as Seabourn or Silversea. But we had a great cruise, one of the best actually, and we met some lovely and interesting people. And they have met us.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone for reading these random notes and for all your comments. I must say I’ve never had a friendlier or more enthusiastic following. Our next trip is in three weeks time, to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This is not a cruise!

Edited August 31, 2017 by Fletcher

[crusin7]

I know I will have Fletcher Withdrawl. I loved the blog. It was fantastic. You are a very gifted writer. Thank you!

[Isklaar]

Thank you Fletcher. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your excellent reports. Also, it was very good to hear from a Regent newbie who has sailed previously with both Silversea and Seabourn.

[garyb(uk)]

I am really looking forward to the Price Christian Sound on our cruise in June. I just hope we get lucky with the weather. Sounds like you had a great time.

 

You mentioned the boats in Nuuk for the whaling trip. I am walking cane disabled and slightly concerned about getting on board. Is it really that bad or were you exaggerating a bit hopefully.

[lj77346]

Thank you for your insightful and enjoyable blog. From my home in the Houston area, I looked forward to reading your reports as a respite from the stress of Hurricane Harvey. Wishing you all the best. Cheers!

[1982CruzStart]

thank you for a great trip report. It was fantastic. Happy travels.

[Fletcher]

Some of you who followed my diary of this cruise might be interested to see the photos I took on board the Navigator and on shore. My Flickr album is here -

 

[flossie009]

Fabulous pictures (y)

Thank you