Greenland – Day 9 can be found here.
Hello Sisimiut!
Oh, how I love to see a 7 on the clock when I wake up. 7 is much nicer than 6 and far, far nicer than 5.
After our later, slower wakeup we went to the Restaurant for a leisurely breakfast, grateful for the chance to simply walk off the ship rather than line up for a zodiac.
Or so we thought.
With the familiar bing-boong-bong of the announcement, Darryn informed us that the dock was being blocked by two fishing vessels. But it was all right, because they had agreed to move. And they would be moving shortly.
Bing-boong-bong. The fishing vessels had not moved. Or rather, they had moved by so insignificant an amount that the Cloud was still unable to dock. So they would need to set up a zodiac landing site instead. Please stand by to stand by.
Bing-boong-bong. Landing zone established! Would Strenuous Hikers and Tele Island hikers please head to deck 3 to disembark…
That was us, so off we went. We hadn’t minded the extra break in the morning – it had given me time to get caught up with another cruise update, and we still landed with plenty of time.
We huddled up with the group for the Tele Island Hike, careful to stay out of everyone’s way. Sisimiut seemed quite busy that morning – then we learned that there had been a recent fuel delivery, and the locals were coming by the docks to stock up. (The same docks that we were using as a landing jetty – so it was a bit of a juggling act, but the expedition staff made it seem easy.)
It wasn’t long before we set off, setting a brisk pace as we made our way through town and off to Tele Island. The terrain was some of our children’s favourite – rough, boggy, hilly, rocky, and wet.
Discarded shell of a sea urchin, after being eaten by a bird
There were some interesting historical sites along the way, including a pair of old stone storehouses.
And some great views of the town itself.
The hike was strenuous, but relatively brief. Fine for us and the kids, though a few of the other guests did struggle a bit – mostly because the terrain was quite wet. But we all made it back in one piece.
After the hike, we tried our luck with a nearby playground that was largely under water.
Predictably, there were some very wet feet afterward. So rather than trying to find yet more ice cream, we headed back to the ship for a nice, warm meal.
It was the 4th of July, and the Cloud was celebrating with a themed luncheon, cake, and live music.
I had hot wings, sea bass, and the 4th of July desserts. My wife had the baked macaroni and cheese.
Honey garlic wings
Seabass fillet
Mahi mahi
Mac and Cheese
Cake!
After lunch, my wife very kindly got a start on packing while I had a power nap. Then it was my turn to weigh in on the pile of admin that we had been studiously ignoring for the past few days – turning in wet-weather boots, filling out the comment card, donating to the crew fund, and writing thank you notes.
Then it was time for the last round of trivia for the cruise, where we hoped to get a ‘clean sweep’ of top-third finishes. But trivia host Daniel pulled out the most difficult round of questions to date, and we only managed a paltry 10 out of 20 questions.
But with 708 prize points (!!!) our son was far from disappointed with his overall performance. We quickly hustled downstairs for prize redemption, where he managed to snag not one but two Silversea teddy bears, complete with little white Silversea T-shirts that were immediately stripped off.
These cost 100 points each, and my son is left with 508 points for our next cruise – which is in July 2024, when we head to the Galapagos! Thanks go to Future Cruise Manager Joshua for handling all our bookings.
Off to the final briefing and the photo show, along with the viewing of the cruise recap video. Both of these have been absolutely stunning, and I will post them just as soon as I have sufficient internet capacity for those massive files. But the quality of both productions is incredible.
Darryn then auctioned off the flags and chart for both this leg of the cruise – and for the overall pole-to-pole Grand Voyage – to benefit the crew fund. Most of the items seemed to go for around $1,000 each. We were tempted to bid but decided to leave them to the pole-to-polers instead. Maybe next time.
Then off to dinner at La Terrazza for another fabulous meal of veal chop and chocolate torte, both of which I sadly forgot to photograph.
There was also a tremendous view as we headed toward Kangerlussuaq – a thick fog had rolled in off the mountains. It felt strangely fitting that, as we were preparing ourselves to leave, Greenland was once more shrouding itself in mystery.
But thankfully – after we had returned to our room and tucked in our kids for one last night at sea – this beautiful island gave an encore performance:
It’s been a fantastic cruise that’s held more excitement and adventure that we could have imagined. And we are genuinely ready to go home.
But it was still incredibly difficult to close the curtain and go to bed.
We put off the moment as long as we could.
Greenland recap video by Silversea can be found here.
Continue reading Greenland – Day 11 here.