Yep, it’s foggy.  At sea level – that is.  It is a brilliantly sunny day above sea level though.  At least the seas are blissfully calm.  We hit the gym at our normal pre-opening time, have our typical breakfast then hang out in Mosaics for a bit, wasting time.  Captain makes his announcement at 8am – no Paamiut.  It is just too dangerous with the dense fog and the ice.  We will be heading North to Nuuk immediately, where he is hoping to get a berth tonight so we can get some extra time in port.  Which would be nice. 

So….surprise day at sea!  We are actually relieved – we can see the damn Zuiderdam on Cruisemapper ahead of us, looking for all the world like she is going to go into the port – or at least tendering in.  More power to ya.  We are quite happy to spend a lovely day at sea with gorgeous sea views, and a fog-bow!  We’ve never ever seen that.  Our surprise sea day has already been great.

Martin has come up with tons of activities – 3 lectures!  Yay.  We’re happy campers.  Up in the Living Room, we listen to trivia. We’ve decided not even to collect the points – we really don’t need another Azamara t-shirt or koozie – so we’re just auditing!  While Ed does his crossword puzzles and I blog.  And watch for random icebergs.

At 11am we are treated with Concorde Les and his talk about “My Day at the Office at 60,000 Feet.” Technical details on the planning, pre-checks and actual flight.  Pilot Ed was in his glory listening to all the details and absorbing all.  Nice way to spend 45 minutes in the morning.  Then off to lunch which of course was of course crazy busy, but doable.

Our 1pm lecture if Dr. Hal with Forensics Detectives.  Unfortunately, they are having Bingo first, so we have to sit through that before he comes on.  But, on the bright side, they are having technical difficulties and Bernardo decides to entertain us with his really bad jokes.  It is actually hysterical, particularly as he gets heckled from the sparse crowd.  Finally Dr. Hal appears for his lecture on DNA and forensics.  How DNA fit into each other.  G and C, A and T.  Base pairs.  Mitochondrion DNA is how you can trace people through the centuries.  Mitochondrial DNA is considered a maternal marker, all comes from mothers, fathers don’t contribute any DNA to mitochondrial.  All about how they found DNA to confirm that Jesse James and Copernicus are actually the bodies buried where history says they are located.  Interesting. But a little too technical – and far too boring to recount in more details.  It passed the time away though, not a problem! 

At 2pm Dr. Jannie is back with Pirates, a very interesting talk about pirates through the ages, including Vikings who were considered pirates because they plundered the ships and villages they came upon.  These Vikings were called beserks – which is where the word ‘beserk’ originates.  They also originated the term starboard for the right side of the ship.  Other interesting pirate examples were:  Eustace the pirate monk who gave up being a monk to become a pirate; Sayyida al Hurra, queen of the pirates, born in Granada, then kicked out of the town when the Muslims took over, making her vengeful and in later life, wrecking havoc against them; Sir Frances Drake, who was considered a pirate by the Spanish because he attacked Spanish ships; Ching Shih, a woman pirate, called the Terror of South China and who was the most successful pirate of all time – she commanded over 1,800 ships, 70,000 men, women & children and rose to prominence as a sharp prostitute who then married a man and shared his pirates – then married her step son. Go figure!  We also learn the origination of the saying ‘Davey Jones’ locker’ – referencing the pirate who threw everything overboard when he died. 

Our last presentation in the Cabaret is a Q&A with the singers and dancers – always fun to meet and learn more about these amazing kids – although 2 of the singers are veterans of the industry at approaching 30 years old!  Finally, back in the cabin, uprooting ourselves from the Cabaret, we have a bit of down time, before the gym and then dinner – where bless their hearts, Vicson and Joel have set table 4 up with menus and folded napkins to save the table for us!  Too adorably sweet!

Dinner is great and lovely – although the dining room is packed and Joel is definitely running his butt off, we barely even see Charles as he is always on the line ferrying food.  Totally different timing on this cruise. These people eat early – guess it’s the age? And nationality? Not too many Europeans?  Don’t know.  Regardless, we know the drill now, and so do the guys!

So now, with nothing to do – it is the comedian magician again – we have plenty of time for the balcony and upstairs on Deck 11 for amazing pictures as we sail into the bay and then Nuuk, rising up out of the fog, later in the evening.  Incredible. 

We choose not to go out and explore the city tonight – I mean, why?  We’ll have all day tomorrow, and we certainly aren’t’ going to go out drinking and eating, not at these prices, no siree Bob.  So we tuck ourselves away in our nice, quiet (thank God) cabin for a lovely evening and nice peaceful sleep.