July - August, 2013
July 20 - Weather: Rainy, windy, hi temp in upper 40s (turned clocks ahead 1 hour last night)
The captain woke up some passengers when he announced we could stay in bed, as we weren't going to be able to go to Prins Christian Sund today. We went to hear a lecture on humpback whales, which was very interesting. It turns out the lecturer is a fellow from Ottawa that we had dinner with a few nights ago. His name is Jim McParland and he's traveling with his daughter Charlotte. He told us that the 30 minute time changes in Canada are mainly about publicity. A few facts about humpbacks: the average female weighs about 90,000 pounds, their hearts are about the size of a VW and the male sexual organ is about 2 meters long. There have been some whale sightings on this cruise but we haven't been fortunate enough to see any. Played Name That Tune tonight with Judy and a young couple (40s?) from Switzerland. Had fun but no chance of winning, as one team had a perfect score--even knew an obscure song called Bridget the Midget.
July 21 - Weather: Foggy, hi temp in upper 40s
There's nothing to see today--the fog is so thick the foghorn is sounding every 2 minutes. We are almost at the Arctic Circle at 65° latitude. We went to hear Location Guide Barbara's talk about the Vikings--hadn't known that they tried to sack Constantinople. When they failed, they started a lucrative trade with the Turks. Jim McParland's talk was about the natural history of Iceland. The island is only 18 million years old (the continents pulled apart 250 million years ago). Iceland is being torn apart by the Icelandic Rift. Jim said that there are signs that a volcanic eruption will happen soon and that if we're lucky we'll see it. Barbara went to watch our trivia teammate Candee compete in the cha cha in Dancing With the Stars at Sea. Very complicated dance, but she and her partner came in second. Tonight we played Name That Tune again and were lucky to have a guy named Tom on our team. We won because he knew almost every top Billboard hit, and the artist, for each month in 1968. Jay and Barbara were pathetic. We skipped the ball tonight.
© Jay 2020