Friday, June 26, 2015
Something new last night. Or at least we never noticed it
before so I assume it is new. There was live music entertainment in the bar on
deck 7. It was a guitarist/folk singer and a harmonica player early on, then
later I only heard the guitar and singing. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t what I
wanted to hear either. The bad news is that it is directly above our cabin and
since they are miked and amplified they can be heard for quite some distance
from the bar, like clearly in our cabin. I guess it is really lucky that we
napped and planned to try to stay up late to see Torghatten. While we waited up
the clouds lowered and it got foggier. It is not clear what we’ll be able to
see. But, at about 10:55pm, we passed on the port side, Norway’s royal yacht
heading southbound and exchanged a honked greeting at speed. It was pretty
cool. I checked with the binoculars and the royal boat did not have any
identifying marks on her. Strange.
We were both up and out expecting to see the mountain with a
hole in it, but it was not to be. The cloud cover was too low and heavy and it
was not visible. I spoke with the tour director before he made the announcement
and asked him which side it would have been on if visible. He replied both,
that the ship would turn and it would be visible from both sides. Clay and I
discussed it and can only figure out that if it had been visible that the ship
would have turned in a pivot in place so all could see it because we never made
a “turn” that would have made a land feature visible from both sides of the
ship. So actually we still don’t know where Torghatten appears on the mainland
or on an island. So, we were up past midnight for no good reason.
This morning we were slow starting. That was unfortunate
because we were both still abed at 7am when the tour director announced that we
would cross the Arctic Circle at 66°33′ in about 10 minutes and there was
a big globe marker on the port side to mark it. Clay hustled up and got dressed
and out to take photos. I stayed in the cabin with Bob and binoculars. I think
I must have had a better view than Clay because he didn’t notice the big steel
cables holding it in place or the birds, which I assume were arctic terns. Now,
I’ve looked them up, we’ve been seeing arctic terns for days. Maybe those birds
I saw on the island at the marker weren’t that special. The other thing we both
noticed was the big pile of rocks. We assume people must have imported them and
brought them ashore to place them there because it didn’t look like there could
have been that many loose native rocks available.
We had a late breakfast and it seemed less crowded. We won’t
stop at a port with time to go ashore until afternoon in Bodo. Right now at
9:15am to 9:30am we are at Ornes. Clay put on his coat and went out for photos
but didn’t try to set foot on land. At 10am they announced a crossing ceremony
on deck 7 out back. They had last night sold 99NOK coupons for champagne out
there at 7:30am this morning. I guess that must not have been well attended,
but I saw plenty of champagne glasses at breakfast after 8am, so maybe there
was some attendance. We will probably try for the 10am just to see, but it will
depend on how much crowd we can take between then and now. We have spent the
morning in the 2nd row of seats in Panorama Lounge. I like the full
180 forward view and the Internet access. But the people can be beyond
comprehension. I told Clay he needs to focus on the views and not the
atmosphere or leave when he can’t because he hasn’t seen anything truly
outrageous up here yet.
Clay left to go sit outside on deck 6 aft shortly after I
typed the above. We met up on deck 7 aft for the crossing ceremony with King
Neptune. They were really cruel about it. The winning entry for the guessing
the crossing time contest was off by only 6 seconds. The official Arctic Circle
crossing time was 7:09:33am. She guessed 7:09:29; her birthdate! They poured an
entire 1 cup ladle of ice water down the back of her shirt. It was windy and
cold out too! I think the high today is predicted to be 10C. As Clay pointed
out, that big bin of ice water was the only we’ll see onboard Nordkapp and they
are pouring it down people’s backs for free. But, you can’t get an ice cube or
ice water otherwise for good money! They were also offering a shot of
cloudberry wine if you took the cup of ice water down the back. We left. If we
want to try cloudberry wine, we’ll buy it somewhere.
I went down with our passports to see if they were doing
Arctic Circle stamps. They told me to try back at 11am. Clay took them down after
it was announced. We spent most of the morning otherwise sitting in the
Panorama Lounge since it is indoors and has the best forward views.
At 11:30am we lined up with the rest for the open seating
lunch buffet in the dining room on deck 4 aft. There was spaghetti with meat
sauce, roast pork in gravy and catfish cakes. The soup was tomato noodle. Ice
cream was a pretty bad rum raisin. I had chocolate swirl cheesecake. As far as
I can tell Clay is living on bread, butter, cheese and lunch meats for both
breakfast and lunch. He eats a lot of potato salad and pickles with these
handmade sandwiches. He mostly has fish for dinner. I went back and brushed my
teeth again and got dressed to go out. We are docked in Bodo from 12:30pm to
3pm. It is gray and overcast but not raining and 4C.
We walked into Sentrum Bodo and uphill to the Nordland
Museum. Bodo is the capital of Nordland. It is the 3rd largest
Northern Norway city at about 50K. Entry to the museum was 60NOK pp. The
signage was sadly all in Norwegian. I did pick up an English language brochure
and can tell you that we saw a dry aquarium, a display on the Lofoten
fisheries, and a display of Arctic birds found nearby, a Sami exhibit. The
highlight was the silver treasure. Over 1000 years ago, some Vikings hid or
lost a 1.2 kilo hoard of silver coins and jewelry in a scree field. In 1919,
someone found it and it is in the museum. The key piece was a big brooch used
by males to hold a cloak. The coins were Anglo-Saxon and Arabic. Isn’t that
amazing? It was an interesting little museum. There is also an air force museum
here. Bodo was bombed by the Nazis in WWII and was a NATO airbase during the
Cold War. As Clay says it was not very photogenic, but then it was rebuilt
after WWII. We walked back through a shopping mall and I visited a Norway
textile products shop, but we didn’t buy anything. Now that we have those boots
we are already in a luggage red zone!
We get off Nordkapp tomorrow. It hasn’t been bad, but it has
been pretty far from good. I can’t imagine doing this on the 15-day back to
back Bergen roundtrip as Hurtigruten recommends and markets. I would certainly
rethink buying meals in favor of grocery stops or their onboard café for a la
carte. Again, the food has ranged from bad (not at correct temperatures) to
just good. Nothing stands out as excellent for the prices certainly. Then there
is the whole begging to be sold an overpriced bottle of water problem!
Honestly! We are actually looking forward to 2 nights in a hotel in Tromso and
now a little leery of the older, smaller ship at Svalbard.
We have another stop at 7pm in Stamsund. It is only 30
minutes and seems to be to let an excursion unload for a Viking Feast
experience on Lofoten Islands. We are staying onboard for dinner! The last stop
of the day is Svolvaer at 9pm to 10pm. It is supposed to be the center of the
Lofoten Islands. Two things within easy distance of the pier can be visited in
the hour we’re ashore. An ice bar (there have been several since Oslo at
least!) and the Lofoten Warmuseum. I hope we’ll be up and go ashore to one or
the other. Clay is napping now so maybe if I can stay awake.
There is an opportunity, weather permitting and time too I
suspect, of sailing through the beautiful and and narrow strait of Raftsundet
into the Trollfjord at 11pm. They say they will serve real Norwegian
“Trollsoup”. I will need to get on the Internet and check that out first. Still
don’t know. I never did find an empty seat anywhere on deck 7 or deck 4 with a
view. I sat on a window sill on deck 7 and could connect to the network but not
reach the Google internet page. I sat in the Internet cubby on deck 4 and again
got connected but was never able to load the Google page. Clay napped for over
2 hours. I did needlepoint and tried to take some photos of the passing
scenery. It is too bad there was nowhere available to actually sit and enjoy
the sailing. I guess this is the real downside of a small ferry. There are more
passengers than there are seats.
It is nearly dinner time. We expect changes tonight. There
were several loudspeaker announcements this afternoon for the Great Rail
Journeys group or their leader. I saw them unload a tour bus to board Nordkapp
this afternoon at Bodo. Strangely, because as we walked past the train station,
we checked the arrivals and departures board and there were only about 3 places
you could connect to on the train and one was Trondheim. Anyway, evidently there
was a problem with their booking and dinners onboard too. Eventually they were
told they could not have their scheduled 5pm dinner but would be seated at
6:30pm. I can’t imagine where because that is our dining time and not that many
people left today to swap out for the busload that arrived in the Great Rail
group. There will be an evening excursion tonight to Lofoten Island Viking
Feast dinner so maybe that is where they plan to get the empty seats. Unless
they relocate all of us though, it seems unlikely they’ll be able to eat
together as a group. Well, we’ll see.
I have no idea what was going on in the dining room, but
service was very slow. It was more than a half-hour before we got to as much as
order water or other drinks. By the time they had served dessert they were
running us out for the next seating. There was a little mixed salad, very well
done roast beef with sauce and potatoes and veggies and a chocolate brownie
kind of thing with berry sauce and cream on it. It was all Okay.
We are still discussing staying up to midnight again
tonight. After the disappointment and stress of staying up last night for
nothing. It seems to have cleared off now though and the sun is shining as
bright as it has all day with blue skies visible. Fingers crossed we’ll have
the special Trollfjord sailing and be able to stay awake for it.
We are docked in Svolvaer now. It is called the center of
the Lofoten Islands. Earlier we passed a peak that the tour director announced
was one of the highest peaks in Norway. Neither of us heard the height for sure
nor the name. We even disagreed about which peak he was speaking. In any event,
neither seemed as high as the peaks we went through, around and over between
Oslo and Bergen. We were scheduled to be here for an hour. Like everywhere else
though, we’ve arrived 5 to 15 minutes late and then try to leave on time. So,
we had about 45 minutes here. We had thought about going to a Magic Ice bar at
last, but when the time got shortened were reconsidering. Then when we passed
the guy on the dock yelling and trolling for customers it put us off for good.
We went out to the right and instead paid 80NOK pp to enter the Lofoten War
Museum. It was disturbing. It was a huge collection of WWII ephemera and
uniforms and an entire Gestapo office. The Lofoten Islands were raided and
occupied by German/Austrian special forces on March 4, 1941. Given the amount
of stuff in those few rooms, when they left they must have just run out
empty-handed!
We have an hour or so to find out if we’re going to make the
special sail into the Trollfjord. The weather seems pretty nice to us so we’ll
hope so. I will go and try to find a seat and hope for an Internet signal so I
can post this tonight. If anything else happens tonight, I’ll either come back
and add it here or I’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’m back. Still no Internet
connection. Panorama Lounge is still hell on earth. So, I’m back in the cabin
with my dirty little window. Clay has lost his favorite spot on the back deck
of 5 or 6 to smokers now as well. In other bad news, the live music is back in
the bar on deck 7 tonight. It is very strange because it is not on the program
and unlike everything else it has not merited an announcement either. Not that
we would know. The latest thing is that people try to talk over the
announcements that are not in their language which at some point means that no
one can ever hear any announcements. So, we know the tour director made an
announcement about the Trollfjord, but we aren’t sure what he said about it.
Well, I guess time will tell. I don’t know when this will get posted. Remember
that if we don’t post or reply for a few days, it may just mean we don’t have
Internet not that anything bad has happened!
So, we both stayed up for the Trollfjord experience which our
tour director described as the highlight of the cruise and it may have been. It
was spectacular and especially at midnight! Norway wins at fjords! I mean other
places have fjords but Norway has an embarrassment of fjords. When we left
Svolvaer, we apparently made a pointless detour solely for showing off these
fjords. We sailed the strait of Raftsundet and made a sharp left turn into
Trollfjord. We went only a short distance in a more narrow fjord and when we
reached the end, the ship turned in place a full turn and then again before
heading back out and retracing our path in. They served “trollsoup” which was
hot creamy vegetable fish soup. Clay said it was warming to drink the hot soup
but I don’t know if he really liked it. They had a couple of young women
dressed up as trolls and sold the souvenir mugs with the special drinks. It is
hard to believe it is past midnight and still light. Like maybe 5pm in summer
on a rainy, cloudy day. But still!
We need to get some sleep as tomorrow we pack up and move on
to the next stage of our cruise marathon. Clay said today after his nap that he
thought the 2 weeks we have at home before the Great Lakes cruise won’t be
enough time to recover. Probably not.
