Monday - day 17 - part 2 - Scenic cruising

Part 1 of Monday can be found here: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/08/monday-day-17-part-1-qaqortok.html 

Our captain had told us earlier in the day that we were going to be taking a different route around southern Greenland than the one we had traversed earlier which took us pretty far offshore to avoid icebergs and in which we were in dense fog. Instead, he indicated that we would be going through Prins Christianssund (Prince Christian Sound). When we went to his talk a few days ago, someone had asked about whether we would be going through there as many cruises do, and he said that it was not likely as the sound can be bottled up with icebergs and you may not know until you get nearly to the end, and then there is no place to turn around for a long ways, so you have to back out to go around the other way, losing many hours in the process. But, evidently, he had gotten reports that cruising through Prins Christiansund was an option, it would be shorter, but, unfortunately, it would be mostly at night.

A picture from the items that are provided in our stateroom (extra charges apply if they are consumed -- we do not!). I found it interesting that the Coke can is labeled "For Airline and Maritime Consumption Only".

Monday was "Orange Day", recognizing the House of Orange of The Netherlands, the home country of Holland America. We were encouraged to wear orange (we had gone to a thrift store in Arizona and gotten orange shirts to wear as orange is not a color that we usually wear). There was a special "Dutch Night" dinner in the main dining room where we were able to try various Dutch dishes...

... including Lindt chocolate with the desserts -- Carl got two -- the Lindt tulip as well as a Lindt hot fudge sundae!

While we were in the dining room there was great excitement as we passed a couple of icebergs that looked to be very close (we were on the second deck in the main dining room so closer to the water level than our room on deck 6). We weren't able to get out on deck to see those...

... but after dinner, we went out on the Promenade deck (deck 3), 

... and enjoyed seeing some of the icebergs as we passed...

... unfortunately none particularly close.

The view looking behind the ship of the mountains with fog around them was pretty too!

When we went back inside, it was just about time for the 8:30pm show to start, so we went in to watch another show by the magician. 

Cruise director Jai welcomed us to Orange Night and Showtime -- he was quite the picture in orange! (We've heard him called "Elton Jai" -- seems appropriate!)

After the magician show, we went over to see the Orange Party going on in B.B.Kings Blues club -- we watched for a little while from the deck above. The music was good, but very loud.

We were now in fjords on our way to Prins Christiansund -- the sun was getting low in the sky, just lighting high peaks...

... there were tall peaks on each side of the ship.

We were curving around these mountains, and threading between icebergs and mountains...

...it was simply beautiful ---

... pictures don't do it justice.

We sent back to our cabin, 

... and I noticed something odd when we came to this area of the fjord...

... zooming in, we could see that it was something that looked human-created...

As we kept on looking, we could see rooflines and brightly colored houses -- we were a *long* ways away from any other habitation.

In this picture, you may be able to see lights at a couple of the houses.

I looked on the map to see where we were -- the community was Aappilattoq. Wikipedia says, "The settlement had 86 inhabitants in 2025." If you're interested in more information, the Wikipedia article can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aappilattoq,_Kujalleq

Here's a screen capture I did on Google Maps with our approximate route through this area of Greenland. It looks like I may have left Carl behind somewhere near Aappilattoq, but that's just the last place his phone connected with a geolocator -- I assure you, he is still with me on the ship!

It was getting dark, so we couldn't really enjoy seeing the rest of the transit through Prins Christiansund. The ship turned the front floodlights on, so we did have a pretty good view via the bow camera, but, we were tired, and it was late (we would lose an hour Tuesday 2am), so we opted for sleep rather than seeing more.

What an amazing time we've had in Greenland. I guess we didn't have a lot of expectations, so all we saw and did went beyond anything we were anticipating!