Live--Silversea Explorer August 8-22, 2017--Svalbard, Greenland, and Iceland.

Love Karolina. She was with us in Svalbard too.

If I remember correctly, Ron has a picture with her. ;)

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Karelian was with us on our two previous Arctic expeditions, but she is no longer with Silversea. George asked about her as they hit it off quickly. The chef is not one we have had before--Chef Jozef--but he is doing a knock out job.

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August 15, 2017--cruising the North Atlantic in the Greenland Sea

During the night, the seas picked up again with a lot of motion. By morning, looking out the window there were huge swells. The sun was shining brightly, so the spray coming off the whitecaps formed rainbows which quickly dissipated. Very beautiful, if a bit rough. The tv says wind speed is between 75 and 85 km/hr. Temperature is 43F.

Obviously, in these conditions, I would not be able to walk outside, so did an hour on the elliptical.

Lunch had a seafood theme, with one of the chefs cooking up huge prawns at one table. There was a big platter of shrimp, mussels, crab etc on the salad bar, and various fried shellfish and fish on the buffet. We still have fresh mixed lettuces for salad though the romaine is gone.

During the afternoon, the seas picked up even more, and we started seeing some small to medium icebergs again, so getting closer to Greenland. A lot of people were feeling unwell due to the movement. One couple reported seeing a whale in the water far off. I did see a huge flock of birds flying past.

I went for a manicure, probably the best I have had on a ship, though I did get scolded for not moisturizing more in this climate. I promised to try and do better.

At dinner, there was a big ruckus as a whale had been spotted. I was able to see it spout 3 times. Pretty exciting! I am constantly reminded of how fortunate we are to be experiencing these things.

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Really enjoying your report Rachel.brings back a lot of memories.

What a pity about Karolina.thank goodness we have done all our Arctic cruising.

And JP do you mean this one?

When you spoke of Karolina, I thought you meant the sommelier on the Whisper!

Oh boy, Ron. Yes, that is the one.

How fortunate that we can take these amazing voyages.

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Rachel - absolutely loving all your posts and especially the photos. I haven't been on the Explorer in 5 years and don't recognize a thing due to refurbishing. Looks wonderful. Hope more reports will be coming.

August 16, 2017--Hurry Inlet and Ittoqqortoormiit Scoresbysund Greenland

The seas fortunately calmed during the night, and we were able to pick up speed. When I awoke, we were anchoring in Hurry Inlet, broad inlet surrounded by weathered mountains on all sides with a little snow on top. The day was bright and sunny with a little breeze and the temperature was in the low 30s, what my mother would call a nice crisp day when I was little, perfect for hiking with the proper clothing.

The choices for the morning were a long hike or a short hike, both going the same direction with the longer one begin about 5 km and over rougher terrain. The zodiac put us out on a rocky beach. What had looked totally barren from the distance was actually full of vegetation, much more than on Svalbard, but we are at 70 degrees N as opposed to 80 N there.

The ground is covered with lichen, moss, lots of varieties of wild flowers, and short flat to the earth trees. We are in an Arctic forest, with birch, Willow, and evergreen trees, the same that grow back home, but they are totally flat on the ground. The air is fragrant with the aroma of sage.

We take off walking at a good pace with bear guards in front and behind. We go up on a ridge where you can see in all directions. There are several musk ox skeletons along the way. There is no real trail, and the ground is very boggy, like walking in a peat bog. We make a big loop, going across a boulder field, the toughest part of the hike by far. There were a couple of camera lens casualties but fortunately no human ones.

After 2 1/2 hours of exploration, it is back to the ship. During lunch, the ship sails back to the mouth of the inlet to a village of about 400, Ittoqqortoormiit, little brightly painted houses hanging on the coast. It is very remote, with only 2 supply ships and 4-5 expedition ships visiting all year. As we sail along, we pass many icebergs in the water. Some are giants, bigger than our barns, and that is just the portion we can see above water.

A short zodiac ride takes us to the village. They have a dock, but it is too small for the ship and too high for the zodiacs. The beach beside it is just right.

We are met by one of the local policemen who will put a Greenland stamp on your passport, a lady selling crafts, and the tourist information lady who is giving directions and maps to all the "sights". We walk all over, all the way up to the heliport on top of the hill where we get great views in all directions.

The local kids are shy but curious about all the visitors. George is wearing his cowboy hat, so lots of the little boys want to show him their muscles. They are very cute.

We go past the very nice soccer field, the pretty church where a lady and her daughter are dressed in native costume, the tourist office which has some amazing sealskin mittens for sale (illegal to import into the US), the school, the grocery/general store which has everything you can imagine with the exception of much fresh produce, and the police station and jail.

The police chief is Danish and speaks excellent English. He is here for a year, along with his wife who is an artist. He has two local men who are his deputies. He and George hit it off, so we were there quite a long time while they visited about the Danish legal system. A judge comes from Denmark for 2 weeks twice a year to hear cases. For smaller offenses, the police chief can just make the person pay a fine, sort of like getting a traffic ticket in the US. After 2 hours, we head back to the ship, and George goes to sweat in the sauna.

As we sailed out to enter Scoresby Sund proper, we encountered huge glaciers as well as dense sea ice, so dense the captain had to stop the ship several times and back up to find an alternate route, but he was able to slowly pick our way through.

We had the first proper sunset in over a week, at about 11:00 pm.

Arctic forest--dense birch and Willow trees

The village

Village church

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August 17, 2017--Hekla Havn and Rode O, Scoresby Sund, Greenland

After a good night's sleep with totally calm seas and finally a dark sky for at least most of the night, we awoke to a very overcast and foggy morning. We were in a more narrow Inlet, with more rugged sharper mountains topped with fresh snow. Temperature in the low 30s with a breeze and no sun, so feeling cold.

Fortunately we were the last group to go ashore, so by our turn, the fog had lifted, and the breeze had settled. It was still very overcast, but comfortable with our layers on. The zodiac took us into a little hidden pirate cove, so well hidden that there was a big sailboat anchored inside which we could not see from our ship.

The shore was mostly big solid metamorphic rock, very weathered and covered with a black lichen, pretty smooth and easy to walk on. We hiked up the hill a ways, and suddenly spotted a musk ox up on the ridge. He was huge, lumbering along, close enough for me to see well without binoculars, but not close enough for a good picture with my camera.

After watching him for awhile, we hiked out onto the spit of rock jutting into the sound and up a hill to a rock cairn that had been made in the late 1800s by some Norwegian explorers who had also placed geological markers at the site for the purpose of surveying. They had over wintered at this location, so there were still some relics left, a rusty pot handle, some old empty cans, etc.

After lunch, we sailed further up the sound, with dramatic jagged mountains on each side and medium to large icebergs floating by. This is supposedly the longest (but not deepest) fjord in the world. There was no wind at all, and it was very comfortable out on deck even though the temperature was in the 30s.

Mid afternoon, our destination for today came into view, Rode O, a giant red island, looking in sharp contrast to everything around it. I am not a geologist, but apparently this is very ancient rock, red because of the iron contained within.

Our zodiac ride took us beside this huge rock and into a wonderland of iceberg, an iceberg city in fact. Huge icebergs, the size of office buildings. I have never seen any so large before. The air was salty, with brine you could taste and smell. All around were the huge ice fortresses, like in some ice fantasy movie. The giants drift here then get stuck because the fjord becomes much more shallow. A couple of seals swam by. It was amazing, and something that words can't describe. After 90 minutes, we were frozen almost solid ourselves, so it was back to the ship for dinner.

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The secret cove

Huge iceberg

Ice cruisers

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George and his ice chunk

The red island

More ice

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Wow. So beautiful and desolate.

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As JP said, stark and hauntingly beautiful...

WOW doesn't seem like enough!!!

Thanks so much for taking your valuable expedition time to share your voyage with us. Photos reflect the beautiful images your rich word pictures describe--love the snap of both George and you Rachel. As an aside can I ask what boots George and you are wearing (i.e, did u bring your own (Bogs?)), or are u using the Explorer's).

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Thanks so much for taking your valuable expedition time to share your voyage with us.

 

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Strongly agree! Your wonderful postings are nearly persuading me to take an expedition cruise, but I think I will in the end be able to resist that urge.

Thanks so much for taking your valuable expedition time to share your voyage with us. Photos reflect the beautiful images your rich word pictures describe--love the snap of both George and you Rachel. As an aside can I ask what boots George and you are wearing (i.e, did u bring your own (Bogs?)), or are u using the Explorer's).

 

 

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This time and the last we are using the ships. The first time we went to Svalbard, we brought our own, but they have a huge supply of really nice well insulated ones, so no need to carry your own. Plus boots eat up a lot of packing space and weight limit.

Thanks again for all the kind words! It is really cold up here, but we are having an amazing time.

Wow! Greenland is on our bucket list. I may have to shuffle it up the order. :)

August 18,2017--Cape Hofmann Halvo and Rypefjord, Greenland

During the night, the captain had been able to move the ship further into the fjord, into an area favored by musk oxen. The morning was partly cloudy with a light breeze and temperature in the low 40s, perfect for a hike. An announcement was made that some musk oxen had been spotted far off the starboard side.

We were in a fairly narrow Inlet, with lower smoother scrub covered hills on one side, where the alleged musk oxen had been sighted, and rough rocky mountains on the other. At the very end was a broad glacier.

The choices for the morning were a very strenuous hike or a zodiac ride. The hikers were called first, and we hopped into the zodiacs which took us to a very rocky shore. After a bit of scrambling, we were up in a broad meadow filled with vegetation. No blooming flowers here. Autumn had already arrived, and the mini trees were changing colors to shades of orange and yellow. The Arctic blueberry plants were bright red, giving bursts of color here and there.

We hiked up and up, over a long rock ridge, and far up ahead, we could just barely see what looked like brown blobs scattered on the hills. We had found the musk oxen. We kept hiking until we got close enough to get good views with binoculars and take reasonably good photos. There were over 20 scattered about, some lying down resting and some grazing.

We watched them for a while, then started hiking back to the landing site. On the way, we spotted an Arctic hare, which is just about the cutest fluffiest little white bunny I have ever seen. He was all white except for tips of black on his ears.

Back in the zodiacs, some musk oxen were spotted right along the shoreline, so we had a little detour to get a closer look before returning to the ship. The whole hike was 3 hours, definitely strenuous, and I got my entire allotment of steps for the day.

After lunch, the ship relocated to closer to the glacier for zodiac cruises. The sun had come out, but it was still very cold in the zodiacs. As we headed to the glacier, we saw a little eider duck family, mom and five ducklings, paddling along. When mom spotted us, she really shooed the babies away fast.

We saw a couple of musk ox high up on the mountains, but too far away to get good pictures.

This glacier was very stable so not much calving at all, but it is very broad with a portion that kind of juts out from the rest which was interesting. Far in the distance, we could see the very edge of the huge icefield on the mainland. After an hour and a half, we were pretty much frozen, so headed back to the ship.

As we ate dinner, we sailed through a lot of ice. This passage was closed just a week ago, but has opened up enough so that we are going to be able to circumnavigate the island in the middle of Scoresby Sund on this voyage.

A word about food--still very good. I had an outstanding filet this evening. However, obviously, we have been at sea for 1 1/2 weeks. The lettuce is becoming somewhat anemic. Berries were gone several days ago.

Ice Cruisers

Appreciate these very, very "COOL" pictures of the ice, scenic sights, etc. Enjoying your nice and detailed reporting. Will have to do an explorer cruise in the future. Silversea should have your on the payroll for this great reporting and these fun postings.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 218,868 views.

www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

The Arctic blueberry turning to its fall colors

The tundra

Our view at dinner

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Definitely one of the best looking couples and view in the Dining room. Are the chairs still attached to the floor by a chain?

Thanks again for sharing the trip with us via your lovely writing style and beautiful photos.

Definitely one of the best looking couples and view in the Dining room. Are the chairs still attached to the floor by a chain?

Thanks again for sharing the trip with us via your lovely writing style and beautiful photos.

Yes, chairs are still chained down.