Trip Day 12 - Crossing the Arctic Circle

Saturday August 19

Wow, there is a lot of hype about this day. Luckily we wake up to a blue sky again.

 

And there it is: the little island with the sign of the Arctic Circle. I took the first photo of it at 7:58 am. There was actually a competition on the ship to guess the precise time ... with seconds. If I had filled out an entry sheet I would have been 5 hours off.

On the other hand, when I looked at my iphone map (you can see the time top left) I saw that we were quite some ways away already. ???

OMG, we took breakfast at 8:25 am. See those two vitamin shots? There are a couple of people who are coughing too much for my comfort. Lots of handwashing and sanitizing on our part.

Love it when the top lounge is pretty empty. Such a lovely view. We read or play cards or work on a blog or I knit. Or we talk! It is not boring.

On deck 5 you can walk totally around the ship. It is our floor. We have to watch arriving in Ørnes.

A bus is waiting for some people who have booked an excursion from Hurtigruten.

It is announced over the loudspeaker that a postman has arrived on the ship. There are picture postcards and special Arctic stamps for sale and he will be in the gift shop to stamp them with a special stamp.

Well, James went to buy them and I wrote them at the lunch table. 

The soup was very delicious. I usually take the lunch soup.

The red beets salad is also very good. 

We visit the postman to give him our cards. He tells us that the cards should be in Oslo next day but since today is Saturday it will be Monday. After that he can not make any promises. Everybody is so nice. The Norwegians are a very calm and laid back people.

We stop in Bodø shortly after 1 pm and our local guide leads us around by foot. She told Stephen that she was not a professional guide and 78 years old. But she had a lot to say which was amazing since there is not really a lot going on in this town. Not really historic or anything like that.

At this spot she did talk about WWII and the German occupancy which was not favorable and I kept my mouth shut.

At this point we turned to walk back because we had a very limited time. 

Quite telling. Need a helping hand? He is offering somebody else's!

Our landmark. The train station and the ship.

Somewhere James had received this list of stops the ship takes. It is a "working ship" not a cruise ship. People get on and off like from a train and packages are loaded and unloaded. Sometimes a stop takes only 15 minutes. The Norway way of life.

Dinner was buffet again and Stephen was disappointed too. The food is still good but it is just nice to order and then not worry about it any longer. And ... one just eats less. I overheard that somebody talked about "the dandelion syrup" and of course I did have to have a taste. And I liked it very much.

7:38 pm - a short stop in Stamsund.

A lecture at 7:45 pm. This time Stephen talked about WWII and the German invasion. 

But mainly he talked about how different Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark reacted and handled the war. It was very interesting again.

We were all so happy about the weather and actually spent some time walking around on deck 5 which has the walk all around.

At 9:20 pm we are scheduled to stop in Svolvær. The ship was a little later but we only had a 5 minute walk to this museum. This is a private collection of WWII things from all different countries involved. The old man had been expecting us and was more than happy to talk with us. He was so very proud of his museum and it really was quite amazing. Of course because of the German involvement it makes me especially sad.

Several in our group could not believe that he even has an Enigma machine. 

At 10 pm we had to hurry back to the ship.

But the day was not over yet. At 11 pm there was a troll on the open deck on 7. 

Actually there was free troll fish soup and a hot troll drink in a cup to buy and you could save/keep the cup. The cups were really cute. Marc wanted to buy them for his children. They were metal and really cute. I thought it was an excellent idea so I went to buy 3 for the younger kids. The troll drink had some alcohol in it but really not much. Still, there were three.

At midnight the ship went into the long forecasted Trollfjord. The fjord was narrow and the ship would move around the lights. I don't know what we had all been expecting but nothing did. Stephen later said that nothing was supposed to happen but James and I were not much into these troll stories. But still, it was a lovely evening because we all felt so lucky with the weather. 

And strangely, here it never seems to get really dark in the nights.

We were so tired though. As soon as we were in our room and started to get ready for the night we heard another announcement. You have to open the door for just a little gap and we heard that one could see some Northern Lights on the 7th deck. That was pretty awesome and special. We were not supposed to have any because its the wrong time of the year. It was worse getting out of the room again. 

It made a full half circle from the horizon on one side of the ship over it to the horizon on the other side of the ship. Of course there was no way that I could take a photo showing it. It is just strange.

All we can say is: what a day!