Gliding among the icebergs

Sailing from Liverpool, England, the Saga Rose, a 43-year-old liner that is aging with considerable grace, called at the Irish port of Cobh before heading northwest to Greenland and Iceland, its main destinations for this July trip.

Perhaps Cobh was an add-on, but it lent a delicious fillip to the voyage that my wife, Laurel, and I were making. About 2 1/2 million Irish immigrants have passed through Cobh, many to the United States. Countless ships have called there.

Of all the callers to this port, one is by far the most famous. And Cobh was its last port of call. The ship was the Titanic.

To the extent that the Titanic’s officers thought about ice -- and it was clearly not enough -- their goal was to stay as far away as possible.

But the Saga Rose, with Capt. Alistair McLundie in command and an “ice pilot,” Capt. Niels Kallesen, providing local knowledge, would seek close, though wary, encounters with icebergs.

Many as big as office buildings, these giant, dazzling bergs -- along with smaller “bergy bits” and “growlers” -- were among the sights that made our journey to northern outposts so unforgettable that they seemed the back of beyond.

It would take three days to get from Ireland to Greenland, days when the North Atlantic delivered what might be expected of it: fog and rough seas, retrograde conditions for many passengers, including Laurel, who likes to sail to exotic places but gets grumpy from prolonged sun deprivation. I, on the other hand, found the weather oddly appealing.

On the first afternoon out of Cobh, for instance, I tucked into a cozy nook aft, sheltered from the wailing wind and the spray scudding across the Lido Deck below me. I wrapped myself in blankets -- “steamer rugs,” in the vernacular of transatlantic crossings -- and admired the fluid composition in gray all around: sky, sea, whitecaps, froth, spray.

The Saga Rose was at home on the wild North Atlantic it had been built -- in 1965 as the Sagafjord by Norwegian America Line -- to cross.

A bearded man joined me on deck and lighted a cigar. “This is sailing as it ought to be,” he said with a broad smile. I thought so too.

However, even I was hungry for sun by the time it finally appeared, if only briefly, before being swallowed again by fog just after we left Qaqortoq, our first port of call in Greenland. There we had walked among modest buildings, brightly colored as is typical of architecture in outpost towns on the margins of livability, and visited a small but excellent museum, which featured an Inuit sod house in its backyard.

Sailing from there, we got our first and best look at humpback whales.

The next day, steaming north, the promise of sun was fulfilled, and from then on we had it whenever we most needed it, and that included picking our way through an astonishing array of ice -- wild natural sculptures, some so purely white they made your eyes ache, others tinged in lovely azure -- into Ilulissat, our second Greenland port.

The Saga Rose is an “ice-class” ship with a reinforced hull, built to sail securely through the Nordic waters it originally plied. This made it ideal for our voyage.

Still, at Ilulissat, there was so much ice in the harbor that McLundie felt it unwise to anchor, so, cautiously, he allowed the ship to drift while passengers tendered to shore. We were lucky, we knew, here and elsewhere, because fog or ice had caused ports to be skipped on previous Greenland voyages.

We would have especially hated to miss Ilulissat, where we took an organized 2 1/2 -mile hike (the only shore excursion we purchased on the cruise) to the mind-boggling Ice Fjord, one of the most prolific generators of icebergs outside Antarctica.

Later in the cruise, during a well-attended Q&A;, the ice pilot said Titanic’s iceberg had almost certainly come from Ilulissat.

That evening, we sailed into Disko Bay. Because we were where the sun never set, Jo Boase, the cruise director, dreamed up a “midnight disco on Disko Bay” -- though with live music on deck and glogg (mulled wine) to ward off the chill.

Of our 17 days aboard, 11 were at sea, and these included the unforgettable traverse of Cape Farewell Passage -- Prins Christian Sund on the charts -- strewn with ice, lined by steep mountains, punctuated by waterfalls and glaciers. It was like sailing through the Grand Tetons.

On this and other occasions, McLundie, always voluble and informative on the public address system, seemed to be having as much fun as the passengers.

“On days like this,” he announced, gliding through Prins Christian Sund, “I’m tempted to say I’d do this job for nothing -- but as a good Scot, probably not.”

Passengers flocked to the decks for this and other scenic highlights, but otherwise were standing-room-only on many of the presentations by four onboard lecturers.

The young, engaging and talented Greenwich String Quartet scattered classical and popular concerts throughout the voyage, and evening entertainment was varied and enjoyable: vocalists, inventive puppeteers, a virtuoso violinist and a company of singers and dancers in productions that weren’t overblown or overproduced.

Afternoon tea, with music, was, naturally, a daily pleasure on this very British ship. Meals in the dining room, single sitting for dinner, were uniformly excellent -- the vegetable cream soups, lobster Thermidor, salmon, rack of lamb, halibut fillet (taken on fresh at Nuuk) were highlights. But whenever the weather was warm enough, we snagged breakfast and lunch buffet-style in the Lido Cafe and ate on the afterdeck. Throughout the ship, the Filipino staff couldn’t have been better.

At the remaining ports, all capital cities -- Nuuk of Greenland, Reykjavik of Iceland and Torshavn of the Faroe Islands -- we explored on our own, walking about, gawking at the idiosyncratic local architecture, visiting museums, and we were happy to do so. We appreciated the fact that the shore excursion manager, in her port talks, spoke positively and informatively about doing things on your own.

In fact, many of the excursions were sold out by the time we boarded, but this diminished our pleasure not one bit. We felt as if we’d found one of Earth’s more remote and spectacular regions, on the vessel that was, for us, the ideal ship to take us there.

Still, the Saga Rose, operated by Saga Holidays, a British company that runs trips for people age 50 and older, is not for everyone. And in fairness, I should own up to certain predilections.

Rooted deep in my sense of sea travel are the routines and rituals of transatlantic shipping, mores that by the 1970s were in steep decline but in many instances live on aboard the Saga Rose.

It looks like the ocean liner it is, with teak decks, proper funnel, traditional lines and a graceful upward sweep of deck at bow and stern -- the sensuous sheer once de rigueur in maritime architecture but long since abandoned in “new builds” of the modern era.

Stand on the Lido Deck aft or sit in the comfortable forward-located Britannia Lounge and you’ll see the horizontal plane underfoot soaring up, up and away. The ship is the closest thing to a seagoing time machine still sailing. (Its future is in fact limited, with retirement expected in the fall of 2010.)

“The Saga Rose was built when naval architects were in charge. Now it’s the accountants,” McLundie said in praising his ship. “They’re not building them like this anymore.”

At 24,528 gross register tons, the ship is, by contemporary standards, delightfully small. Our outside cabin on A Deck -- spacious and woody handsome, typical for the ship’s era -- was near the main stairwell, so the dining room, lounges, library, theater and Promenade Deck were all a minute or two away. On our voyage, the ship was essentially full, with 530 passengers. That we had a crew of 357 is one good indication of the high level of service we experienced.

But here are some caveats: Laurel and I were half of the total complement of Americans. We four outnumbered the Aussies and the Kiwis, as well as the handful of assorted Europeans. If being immersed in a genuinely foreign culture, though the natives more or less share a language with us, appeals, sign on. If Brit-speak and the sensibilities that go with it don’t sit well, seek another ship. (The Brits we met at table and on deck were all wonderful company, we thought.)

Do likewise if gambling is your thing because there is no casino aboard the Saga Rose. The primary gambling opportunity is the daily “mileage pool”: Passengers are invited to toss a pound in the kitty and guess the noon-to-noon mileage traveled, another throwback to the days of transatlantic crossings. And there’s just one smallish shop, so dropping from shopping won’t take long. The fitness center and spa are, by contemporary cruise-ship standards, modest and are deep in the bowels of the ship.

The most basic caveat is this: If you’re young -- or if you just like to mingle with a young crowd or enjoy having children around -- the Saga Rose is not for you. At least one passenger in each cabin must be 50 or older, and no one under 40 may sail. But though Laurel and I like to think of ourselves as young at heart, we found this veteran liner just about perfect.

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travel@latimes.com

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Getting aboard

The Saga Rose will set sail on its “Voyage to Iceland and Greenland” from Liverpool, England, on July 23. For a brochure or to book, contact Cruise & Tour Reservations, Saga Cruises’ North American representative; (800) 343-0273, sagacruise@gmail.com. For information, go to www.sagacruises.com.

PRICING

Saga is British and priced in pounds -- which makes it expensive for Americans -- with per diems roughly equivalent to those for deluxe cruise lines such as Seabourn and Silversea. Discounts (up to 45%) are greatest early and decline as sailing dates near. Last-minute deals are rare, so early booking is the best bet. Gratuities are included, as is the private car service from airport to pier if within 75 miles, or shared car service within 250 miles, all of which helps to ease the pain.

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