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rojaan19
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Luxury cruise ship with mostly Australians on board stuck in mud in Greenland Arctic
A luxury cruise ship carrying 206 passengers, mostly Australians, has run aground in remote north-eastern Greenland, and the closest vessel that can help with the rescue is not expected to arrive until Friday.
The Ocean Explorer became stuck at about noon on Monday, Greenland time, in the Alpefjord, roughly 1400 kilometres north-east of Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, according to Brian Jensen of the Danish military’s Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk.
The ship’s captain initially waited for high tide at midnight to try to float clear, Jensen said by phone. But the mud – a mix of sediment, sand and silt left by a nearby glacier – is exerting suction on the vessel and may be proving too difficult to break.
The ship waited for the next high tide which on Tuesday, but that attempt was also unsuccessful, he said.
“Our main priority is the safety of the 206 persons on board,” Jensen said. “It’s very isolated. We’re in the national park, north-eastern Greenland, there’s no population. Luckily, it’s calm and we have time on our side as there’s no imminent threat of a storm.”
A Danish naval vessel already at sea off the coast of south-west Greenland has been diverted and should reach the area by Friday morning, he said. At this point, freeing the ship would likely require a third-party vessel commissioned by Aurora Expeditions, the operator, which is based in Sydney. Most of the passengers are Australian, Jensen said.
“All passengers, the expedition team and crew onboard are safe and well,” Aurora Expeditions, the ship’s Sydney-based operator, said in a statement. “Importantly, there is no immediate danger to themselves, the vessel, or the surrounding environment.”
A military flight over the 104.4-metre-long and 18-metre-wide Ocean Explorer confirmed that its hull appeared intact and no oil has escaped. No injuries have been reported and it’s believed the ship which is owned by the Ulstein Group in Ulsteinvik, southern Norway, has plenty of supplies.
I cant post the map but the story is here =
Me =
Seeing as most of the passengers are Aussies - I hope they have plenty of booze on board !! 🥂🙃🥂
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53 minutes ago, 5waldos said:
Absolutely! Must say that every Captain I have encountered (and only this one in quite such a dramatic fashion!) has been attractive and a gentleman. One might almost think that they were selected for their charm and smile.
Well meet Captain Maggi !! Silverseas first woman Captain - we sailed with her on the Explorer a couple of times.
Maggi Ettlin the first woman to Captain a Silverseas ship.She hails from Switzerland.
She is 5'3" and wore stilletos on board, if she was in flat shoes -you knew is was going to get rough !!!
"Experienced Master Mariner / Captain with a demonstrated history of working in the leisure, travel & tourism industry in particular in polar waters and remote areas onboard Expedition Cruise Ships and Ice breaker. Skilled in Helicopter Piloting, GMDSS, Maritime Operations, Maritime Safety, and Hospitality Industry. Helicopter pilot holding an EASA and FAA licence CPL(H)."
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20 hours ago, mysty said:
Greetings Coolers!
Today's funny.....
Have a great safe fun day all!
I had to check ... Iris is still going at 102 !!!
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DaveyWavey - That is a great hat for Alice Springs - and you will need it !! It is going to be very hot - average daily temp range in January of 35 to 40 C !!
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11 hours ago, Daveywavey70 said:
I'm 6'4" Lola so hopefully would carry them off. 🙂
If you are 6'4" you can do what ever you damn well like !! 😊 🙄 🥂 🤭
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5 hours ago, Daveywavey70 said:
I Know its only tatt but I do quite like it. I Don't know why more men don't wear pearls.
On our last Moon cruise -54 days, there was a couple and he had a lovely opera length string of pearls, he would wear on formal nights. He was tall and thin, usually wore black, so the pearls stood out. He used to be model for Versace.
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Entertainment on board is about to change ! Nobody knows just how much, as yet, so your question can't really be answered. We are all waiting for a review of the new entertainers 🤩
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Well Mysty I am jumping in here with an article that was in an australian newspaper today - on Thursday Island !! It is written by an Irish man now living in Australia who is a "travel expert" and got a free cruise on Viking !
"This is why a good cruise is so exhilarating: you can arrive somewhere remote without making much effort. Getting to Thursday Island isn’t otherwise easy. You can fly from Cairns to Horn Island and transfer by ferry, or you can take a ferry from Cape York – though you’ll have to get there first.
Viking Orion has nipped over from Darwin while I was sleeping, conveying me in comfort to a place most Australians have heard about but never visited. Anyone determined to see their own country should add it to their bucket list.
Green Hill Fort.
As we drift towards the quay in tender boats, I see the tidy settlement is larger than it looked from the ship. Decent solid houses sit on hillsides lush with wanton tropical greenery and trees that blossom in explosions of orange and yellow.
I follow a great footpath that leads me around the coast. The setting is wonderful: a wide bay embraced in the arms of several islands. A brisk breeze mitigates the humidity. Clouds drift like galleons across a moody sky.
I pass the Grand Hotel and post office, backed by a small settlement that has those intriguing shops of remote places that sell generators and chainsaws and satellite dishes. Then the town falls behind me, replaced by mangroves.
Thursday Island’s melancholy and charming cemetery spreads over an entire hillside. The 1880s tombs of Japanese pearl divers are crumpled and tilted by time. So are the piously sentimental, colonial-era tombstones lopsided under eucalyptus trees further up the hillside, recording shockingly youthful lives.
Decima Clark died here in 1901 aged 37. She has a pointy tombstone (“God is Love”) decorated with stone-carved lilies and surrounded by rusting railings. Dead leaves are her only remaining tribute.
View from Green Hill Fort.
The newer graves of the Torres Strait Islanders are lovingly tended and lavish. Angels and crocodiles and an abundance of plastic flowers in riots of colour decorate their gleaming black slabs.
Photos show those lodged inside. There are Chinese and Muslim names and faces, and solidly English ones, and often extravagantly long names that mix cultures.
The cemetery has a memorial to Bernard Namok, who designed the Torres Strait flag. For Indigenous inhabitants, this is the heartland. For the rest of us, this is where Australia ends, or perhaps where Indonesia or Melanesia begins.
The Torres Strait Islands are a marvellously intermediate place with a fusion culture and cuisine you won’t find anywhere else. Torres Strait, Aboriginal, European and Asian elements mingle.
European missionaries and Japanese pearl fisherman came here nearly 150 years ago. World War II saw an influx of American and mainland Australian military personnel. The gun emplacements of Green Hill Fort now provide a marvellous outlook over slumped green islands and turquoise seas scattered with warplane wrecks.
The best sight is Gab Titui Cultural Centre. It displays historical artefacts and contemporary Torres Strait art, and also has a lively program of Indigenous music and dance.
Thursday Island has every tropical island cliche but no big hotel developments or cocktail bars. It’s a laidback, barefoot place for fishing charters and sunset beers.
Despite its cultural density, you can walk around its 3.5 square kilometres in a day and stop along the way to chat to locals. The kids are shy, flashing hellos before pedalling off on their bikes.
Thursday Island is the perfect cruise destination: hard to get to, interesting to visit, small enough to see in a few hours. But as we sail away, I know I’d like to return one day. "
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6 minutes ago, mysty said:
We sail in on March 16th and sail out on March 17th. We have a dinner excursion booked for the 16th and nothing booked for the 17th. Maybe we can make magic happen! 😁
DEFINITELY !!! 🤩 🥂 🤩
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9 minutes ago, mysty said:
YES !! We will be in Bali then, we get on the Muse 18th March sailing to Japan !! We arrive in Bali on 15 March, staying for 3 days before we get on the Muse.
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Mysty I will be able to tell you all about Thursday island as we will be there on 20th November this year ! We are on the Muse Japan - Singapore - Cairns 44 nights !
As to Cairns make sure you have a good hat and bug spray - it will be very hot and humid - so keep the fluids up !! It was 30C on the same day this year, so very warm for a Canadian !! 🙃
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We have travelled a lot in Japan. We always do the luggage forewarding - it works perfectly in Japan. Makes it easy using the trains with only carry ons !! We usually have enough clothes in our carry on for two hotel stays and send the luggage on to the hotel 2 stays away. It is called Takubin. Just ask at the desk when checking in and they will tell you who in the hotel organises it - super easy !
"With the famous Takkyubin delivery service, it is possible to send luggage between two addresses in Japan and have them delivered within 48 hours maximum "
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5 hours ago, mysty said:
I registered for the webinar and received a confirmation. This confirmation included the name of an additional participant to the presentation. Jannie Cloete, Director of Silversea Experiences and Events will be joining Ms. Muckermann and Norman Rafelson. Jannie Cloete has been the magician behind some amazing World Cruise events. He is a very personable gent and I'm looking forward to hearing his contribution to this presentation! 😁
I posted this link earlier. If you want to know more about Jannie Cloete read this....
https://discover.silversea.com/destinations/world-cruise/jannie-cloete-world-cruise-events/
We cruised with Jannie back in April 2016, on the Caledonian Sky ! He was CD on that ship at the time - it was a cruise around Japan for cherry blossom time organised by an English/Australian Horticultural Club. The gardens were fantastic - the ship was not ! but Jannie was excellent -so glad he joined Silverseas !!
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4 hours ago, Daveywavey70 said:
Now there is a face I could love .... what a cutie !!
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Well Mysty at $US 150 per perspn for the tour I think that is over priced. Last October Ron and I spent the weekend in Newcastle for a conference - we had not been back to the Hunter Valley in a very long time. I did not recognise Newcastle - so much had changed !
What other tour choices do you have ?
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9 minutes ago, mysty said:
For those interested....one excursion is now available to book for Newcastle. It is a Selected excursion. It looked interesting so I booked it.
HISTORIC PUB CRAWL - Newcastle, Australia - $149.00 USD
Join your guide on a 3-hour walking tour of the historic area of Newcastle, visiting four of its historic pubs, bars and hidden gems. Your half-day excursion is packed with great stories of Newcastle's past from its convict settlers to miners and all the miscreants and the occasional drunken 'knights' in between. Newcastle's history is best told over a drink, or two.
Newcastle, or 'Newie' as the locals call it, loves a drink. When learning about all the great and terrible things that have happened here, you'd need a drink too. From its convict roots as a place of 'Secondary Punishment', its time as the nation's 'Coalopolis', to the '89 Earthquake through to its recovery today, this tour gets under the skin of the city to unearth its true character. The best place to find that character? A pub.
Visit four local venues during this historic pub tour and learn all about the local beers & breweries, the 6 o'clock swill, the first lock out laws, tales about Molly Morgan and a few other Hunter bar maids. You will also get an insight in Newcastle's founding and the convict history before it is time to rejoin the shuttle and return to the pier.
Oh Mysty - we lived in the Hunter Valley for 18 years and our son went to Newcastle Grammar School, geez there is sooooo much wrong - I dont know the Newcastle you have described !!
Ron will chime in !
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16 hours ago, mysty said:
Okay, I splurged a tad. It was 1/2 price. Still not in the price range of my other purchases though. My newest necklace.....
The bottom pic is closer to the true colours.
Mysty - what is it made out of ?? The top picture it looks like marble balls - and I thought that would be heavy !! but the other picture it looks like silky material ??
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We are another couple who ALWAYS arrive at the boarding port a day or 2 before the cruise starts !
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18 hours ago, Joc123 said:
DW says he will be spending 2 days at Uluru which is the First Nations name for Ayres Rock.
No one in Australia refers to the rock as anything but Uluru.
"No one in Australia refers to the rock as anything but Uluru."
That is not quite true ! Older Australians will still refer to it as Ayers Rock !
Ayers Rock was the most widely used name until 1993, when the rock was officially renamed Ayers Rock / Uluru – the first feature in the Northern Territory to be given dual names.In 2002 these names were reversed at the request of the Regional Tourism Association in Alice Springs and the rock took on the official name of Uluru / Ayers Rock, which it still has today. That means you can use either Uluru or Ayers Rock to refer to the rock.
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3 hours ago, jpalbny said:
Made some gnocchi for dinner.
The only problem is that I'll be starving in a few hours. Chris said they'd be even better with bacon.
Totally right Chris !!!
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Hasn't this thread been done to death ! I am no longer looking at it 🤦♀️
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Problems in Greenland/Arctic but not SS !!
in Silversea
Posted
No surprise it is news in Oz ! Todays Sydney Morning Herald =
"Australians on board a luxury cruise ship that has run aground in remote north-eastern Greenland say spirits are high despite several cases of COVID-19 being reported on board.
The Ocean Explorer became stuck at about noon on Monday, Greenland time, in the Alpefjord, roughly 1400 kilometres north-east of Greenland’s capital, Nuuk.
The ship is carrying 206 passengers, mostly Australians, and the closest vessel that can help with the rescue is not expected to arrive until Friday. The cruise was scheduled to run from September 1 to September 22.
Retired Sydney couple from Newport, Steven Fraser and Gina Hill, said the restaurant is still functioning and passengers were occupying their days with talks and presentations from the expedition crew showing how to tie nautical knots.
“Everyone’s in good spirits. It’s a little bit frustrating, but we are in a beautiful part of the world. We’re sitting right near the glacier when we open our window,” Fraser said, adding that he had contracted COVID-19 on board the ship.
“We do have a couple of cases of COVID, but there’s a doctor on board ... a lot of people on board are quite elderly.
“It’s a cruise that a lot of wealthy older people do because they can get out into these wilderness areas.”
Fraser said the crew had been moving fluids around on the boat and emptied its ballast – the bottom of the ship which carries extra weight.
“They’ve offloaded the anchor ... and they’ve taken the lifeboats, so they’re floating in the water but they’re still attached to the boat, just to try and lighten the load a bit.”
The ship’s captain initially waited for high tide at midnight to try to float clear, according to Brian Jensen of the Danish military’s Joint Arctic Command in Nuuk. But the mud – a mix of sediment, sand and silt left by a nearby glacier – is exerting suction on the vessel and proving too difficult to break.
The ship waited for the high tide on Tuesday, but that attempt was also unsuccessful, he said.
“Our main priority is the safety of the 206 persons on board,” Jensen said. “It’s very isolated. We’re in the national park ... there’s no population. Luckily, it’s calm and we have time on our side as there’s no imminent threat of a storm.”
Jensen said a Danish naval vessel already at sea off the south-west coast of Greenland has been diverted and should reach the area by Friday morning. At this point, freeing the ship would likely require a third-party vessel commissioned by Aurora Expeditions, the operator, which is based in Sydney. Most of the passengers are Australian, Jensen said.
“All passengers, the expedition team and crew onboard are safe and well,” Aurora Expeditions said in a statement. “Importantly, there is no immediate danger to themselves, the vessel, or the surrounding environment.”
A military flight over the 104.4-metre long and 18-metre wide Ocean Explorer confirmed that its hull appeared intact and no oil had escaped. No injuries have been reported and it’s believed the ship, which is owned by the Ulstein Group in Ulsteinvik, southern Norway, has plenty of supplies.
Aurora Expeditions specialises in polar trips, including a 30-day cruise costing more than $US33,000 ($51,000) per person, according to its website. The company highlights the experiences it offers to view Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and spot wildlife like polar bears, beluga whales and walruses.
Alpefjord is in the Greenland National Park, the world’s largest and most northerly national park known for icebergs and the musk oxen that roam the coast.
Greenland, like many Arctic landscapes, is becoming increasingly concerned about the logistics of mounting expensive rescue operations in remote areas.
The number of cruise ships in Greenland has risen 50 per cent in the past year to 600, Jensen said. Last year, the Joint Arctic Command did one medical evacuation and so far this year has done five, he said."