Tuesday 6 September 2011

Welcome to The Twilight Zone!

Today we were enshrouded by fog all day long.  It was like an episode from Rod Sterling’s: The Twilight Zone.  Was there really a world outside of that white wall of mist?
Samarinvågen glacier in the fog (Photo © Joe Decker)
We weren’t scheduled to land at Gnålodden until 14:30. Many people chose to attend one of the lectures we had scheduled from 09:30 until 12:00.
At 14:30 it was plain to see that it was too foggy to land at Gnålodden.  Like I mentioned yesterday, playing peek-a-boo with Polar Bears in the fog is not exactly the safest thing to do.  Exciting? Yes!
It was an easy decision to cancel the landing and seek out a landing site with good visibility.  It was a good plan, but the fog persisted.  There were moments of sheer beauty like when the sun poked a hole in the fog blanket to illuminate parts of the glacier at Samarinvågen.
Samarinvågen glacier in the fog (Photo © Joe Decker)
Heavy sea fog near Gnålodden (Photo © Joe Decker).
A very big part of a vacation on a ship can be the ship itself.  Fram is a very comfy vessel.  A day like today was a day to pamper one’s self.  After all we had been kept hopping with two landings just about every day. There are two excellent jacuzzis outside on deck seven and up high on deck eight there are the nicest saunas I’ve seen on any ship. There are also plenty of places to sit quietly to read a book. The gym was busy for much of the day.  Perhaps people were using the opportunity to burn some of the extra calories they had been consuming while on board. 
A day of complete relaxation today, means energy to burn tomorrow! Hah!