Due to the fact that Reykjavik is located at the South West side of the island and the Faroe Islands more to the East, we had to sail around the southern part of Iceland. As it is not exactly a small island it took us quite a while. It was only by noon time today that we finally left the island behind and started the crossing. Although we are away from the area of the midnight sun, it is still not completely dark during the night and thus we could see the mountain ridges of South East Iceland all night long and well into the morning.
The body of water that we crossed today is the most Southern part of the Norwegian Sea; there where it connects to the North Atlantic Ocean. Under water the landmass is called the Faroe-Iceland Rise. Called a “Rise” due to the fact that it is less deep than the surrounding area. Taking it in perspective in regards to the size of the world; Iceland can be seen as a gigantic mountain that rises steeply up from the sea bottom and to the east of that mountain is a relatively shallow area that is called the Faroe Iceland Rise. With shallow I mean depths of 2000 feet while the area around it has depths of 6000 feet. My apologies for the spelling of the word Faroes. Due to the fact that is Danish, the name rewrites in several ways. In the Times atlas, which I use as my operating bible, it is spelled Faroes; in the Dutch language it is Faroer and the locals spell it as Faroe Islands when not writing it in Danish characters. Whatever the spelling of the name, we headed that way on a south easterly course while I kept a close watch on the weather. I had conflicting weather forecasts again about the “local weather at the dock” and if the wind is from the wrong direction in this port, neither docking or tendering is an option. I suppose all will be revealed tomorrow but I like to form a picture in my mind before I get there and have my plans A, B and C ready before arrival. Especially plan C,…getting out of there as fast as possible if I do not like the situation.
In the mean time life onboard continued its happy way and I contributed today a little bit as well. I normally do a power point presentation about the Holland America Line history on a longer cruise, when there are more sea days. Then I have to have time in my schedule and also the Cruise Director can make time in his daily program as with 136 years of HAL history to get through, it takes awhile. Normally I over run which upsets the bingo players so today the whole afternoon had been cleared as I was also expecting quite a bit of Q&A, especially with 250 Dutch people on board. Quite a few of them had family, or they themselves had sailed for Holland America in the past. We have a son of a Hal Captain onboard and a gentleman whose Grand father died on the Rotterdam of 1908 when it was hit by a freak wave during a North Atlantic crossing. I over ran this time by nearly an hour but nobody walked out of the lounge so the presentation must have been acceptable.
Another thing that the company has started awhile ago was the captain’s photo shoot. Before we had the captains champagne toast, all guests would shake the Captains hand and then had a photo taken while coming by. Since this official Meet-and-Greet is a thing of the past we try to arrange, once a cruise, a photo opportunity with the captain. There are always a few guests out there who collect Captains pictures and therefore I do not mind doing it. As the photo setup is in the atrium it gives me chance as well to talk to other guests who are coming by but not necessarily stop for a photo. We do this on a formal night and that means that everybody looks presentable and the photos sell accordingly.
It being the one but last formal night of the cruise meant we also did a Black and White Ball tonight, so after dinner I “danced the night away”, for 30 minutes……. as I have early standby for arrival tomorrow morning. Before arrival we will be going through a fairly narrow passage with a lot of cross current, so I want to be on the bridge as an extra pair of eyes while the Officer of the Watch sails the ship through.
August 4, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Thank you very much for the trip up North, Captain. As you wrote, surely not a destination for regular air traffic. I could follow your Svalbard travel and your furthest northern location (!) on a pretty good map in the Apr 09 issue of the Nat Geo. A new fact to me is that those “freak” waves also happen in the North Atlantic region. Are there instruments these days that can predict these ‘rogue waves’ more accurately, Captain?