Greenland Passage

When you're away from home for so long and have little in the way of scheduled commitments, knowing the day or date largely becomes irrelevant. Even holidays seem unimportant. I should have paid more attention. Egg Rock Lighthouse at sunrise At our shipboard briefing  before landing in Bar Harbor Tuesday we were told that, in addition to the optional excursion, we could hop on the Island Explorer bus system emanating from the Village Green, which I use during my regular summer visits, to reach all points on Mount Desert Island. My plan was to bus to one of my favorite spots for watching the tide come and go. But the buses stop running immediately after the Columbus Day weekend, the "official" end of the season in Bar Harbor. If only I had remembered that the Columbus Day weekend was last weekend, not next. My plan to visit my favorite rock and tide pool fizzled when I walked up from the waterfront to the Village Green and saw none of the propane-fueled buses wi...

Fram  crew washes Panorama Lounge  windows This repositioning cruise of the Fram from Arctic to Antarctic comprises different segments, each of them bookable. My trip from Greenland to Halifax is the first of the repositioning segments, followed by New York; Miami; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; then via the Panama Canal to Callao, Peru, and Valparaiso, Chile, before heading to Antartica. The problem for Hurtigruten, the operator of the MV Fram, is that these repositioning cruises do not draw full boats. Even on this first segment from Greenland, the 240-passenger vessel is barely half full. The two segments along the U.S. East Coast are even lighter. Only 84 souls are booked from Halifax to New York. Including me. I planned to end my journey in Halifax, but when I heard so few were traveling south to New York I asked the purser if he could make a deal. He said he'd get back to me in a couple hours "with an offer you can't refuse". He did. I didn't. So ...