Saturday 1 June 2013

Let’s go West!

Our next two days we will spend at sea. The Denmark Strait between Island and Greenland can be very rough, but it looks like that we are travelling with lots of angels as the sea is totally smooth.There is nearly no wind and only a little bit of swell. Best weather conditions for whale watching as you can see nearly all movements at the sea surface.

And we have been successful. Several times during the day we could spot some whales, most of them have been Sperm Whales; one we saw in the distance seemed to be a Seiwhale. For a while we have been accompanied by a small group of dolphins. Small crowds of Northern Fulmars and Kittiwakes followed the ships. As we had so less wind we could not expect so many sea birds because they need the wind to fly. But it has been worth to stay on the open decks; there was always something to see. Even the flat sea looked nice in the sunshine, especially in the later evening during the very, very late sun set.
The morning program started with our first bridge visit tour for our chinese guests. Tomorrow the other nations will have the chance to see the working area of our officers.

Of course there was a lot of time for reading books and dreaming.
 

During the day our international lecturer staff has given many lectures in German, English, Norwegian and even with a translation into Chinese. A sea day is always a good possibility for lecturing and teaching the passengers. The lecturers want us to be best prepared when we reach our destination we dreamt of for such a long time – Greenland.  


We are on the same route like Erik the Red more than 1000 years ago. But times have changed. He went over the Denmark Strait in open rowing boats; we have our wonderful ship FRAM. We can be relax, our officers on the bridge are doing a wonderful job for us, we have not even to think about it. After only one day we feel like home on board. During the night most of us will sleep again very well. The soft movement of the vessel gives us the feeling of sleeping like a baby in a cradle. Let’s see what kind of surprises the next day will bring to us.