Off to Iceland, Day 6, 08/08/26 See Day III

Saw orcas

Sea day #3
Overcast, Low clouds with some fog, Noon Temp 52
Sunrise 4:43, Sunset 8:17

Losing 1 1/2 hours took a toll on us.
And we didn’t really need to be anywhere until 9:30
So we slept in.
But never fear – we planned our morning with time to exercise after the first lecture.

Which was on Genealogy – specifically:

She took us thru a specific search for her father’s ancestors and showed us copies of the census forms she used to identify back thru his granparents.
It’s a kind of research that I’ve not seen before and it was interesting to see how she handled the questions to come to her conclusions.

Then it was time to get serious about exercise (this is the ONLY way to avoid gaining ‘a pound a day’ on a cruise ship). I did my standard 4 mile walk on the promenade deck while Cheryl went to the gym to use a treadmill.

For my part it was – interesting. Weather was brisk with a strong wind off the port bow which made half the ship cold and the other half (the leeward side) warm. The raincoat I wore to use as a windbreaker lasted just one mile. From then on it was brisk. And boring. Until…
During the last lap I spotted 3 orca fins about 200 yards out.
As the Wildlife Watchers were out on deck I stopped to ask the leader (our on-board naturalist) if it was possible to see orcas here. Yes, it is. “In fact, look out there and you can see spouting from the rest of the pod.
Walking the deck you always hope to see wildlife of some sort. Today was a Good day.

Turns out it was a better day for me than for Cheryl.
When she got to the gym all the machines were in use and the hot tub in the spa was full (sea day).
So she came back to the room for a long hot shower.

So after I finished my ablutions we went to lunch.

The first event after lunch was a meeting with ‘the future cruise guy’. He’s the on-board travel consultant who helps you book your next cruise.

This is the announcement:
We’re going to ANTARCTICA!

We booked a cruise in January 2028.
Go Us!

We celebrated by attending the 3:00 lecture:

We both had trouble staying awake so afterwards we came back to the room and napped.

We felt so comfortable there that we watched the 4:30 port talk on our stateroom TV from the comfort of our bed.
That talk ran long because they spent the first 20 minutes talking about the eclipse next Wednesday.
We’ll be in Iceland and it happens about 5:45 pm.
They’ll hand out viewing glasses.
Cheryl and I will be back on board by then after an excursion so we’ll have a great opportunity to see it.
Assuming we can actually see it.
The weather up here is squirrely and changeable and we won’t know what’s possible until we get there.

After the port talk we read and blogged until the 6:30 lecture:

More highly technical, number-laden information but he started out by explaining that our brain is wired to understand the human hair and the horizon and not much else either smaller or larger than that.
So discussions of supernova and black holes and quarks and the planck constant are bound to be problematic.
And yes, he had all kinds of numbers and slides to talk about why:

That’s impressive stuff.
So we went to dinner.
Then it was back to the room to read and blog and watch the choppy gray sea for signs of marine life.

Tomorrow noonish we arrive in Qaqortoq Greenland.
We get to visit a local family and find out about life in this small Greenland village.

Till then,
R