Friday 31 August At Sea

Friday 31 August - at sea

Lasted two songs last night, not our cup of tea. We gain an hour overnight so we sleep in and meet up for breakfast at 9. It is a beautiful sunny morning, calm seas and an expected top temp of 21. After breakfast we attend the cooking show which was very entertaining. We have been extremely lucky with the weather, only one day where rain had some impact and much better weather than has been experienced in Melbourne. At dinner last night our waiter Arthur treated us to some more napkin folding and we had lots of laughs.

Ross and Karen and John and Kaye have had great weather for their first two cruises. The only times when it did get a bit bumpy was at night and when you are lying in bed it has little effect.

Norway was a great trip, but it did get repetitive with all the fiords, waterfalls and beautiful little towns. There is only so much beautiful scenery you can see each day. It is an expensive place and it would more expensive if you had to pay for meals and accommodation. It was certainly a great trip but not one we would repeat.

We have checked our tickets and rail passes and everything checks out so hopefully we don’t have any issues. We arrive at Southampton tomorrow at 7am and have transport booked for 8.30 to take us to Heathrow. Our plane departs at 1.45 and we arrive at Zurich at 4.30. From there we catch a train to Lucerne where we can walk to our hotel. It is going to be a long day tomorrow.

Sayings being used on the tour so far include: just saying (courtesy Kate Hoy), meet at muster point, you people, ja ja, Mabo and the vibe, this rose is so easy to drink (mostly by Luggy), the deck!

The afternoon is spent packing suitcases. The weather has remained mild and the seas calm. We will have one last go at trivia!

Bergen

Bergen

This morning we arrive at our last port of call. It is raining early but expected to clear. Bergen has over 270 days of rain a year so we will be lucky to get a clear day, in fact Bergen even has an umbrella dispensing machine.

Once again it is a very pretty city. By the time we head off at 9.30 it has cleared and the sun is shining. The temp is up around 17, we are very lucky. The town is beautiful and has some wide mall areas and a beautiful garden, plaza and water fountain. We walk through the fish market where there are large crabs, lobsters, prawns, fish and whale meat along with reindeer and moose. Ann is shocked by the sale of whale. The girls do a bit of shopping and we walk around the water front area. The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day. We have an early sail away at 2 pm so we head back to the ship at 11.30.

After lunch we watch our last sail away from our balconies and Ross and Karen bring a bottle of our favourite Rose.

We are not talking about trivia today!

We have our formal night tonight and tomorrow we are at sea. The show sounds interesting tonight as the performer is Phillip Browne who starred in the Lion King as Mufasa.

Alesund

Alesund

We meet up at 8.30 for breakfast. Alesund appears to be a very pretty town of 45000 inhabitants. Our berth is very close to the town centre. We have a tour booked on a little blue train which winds its way through the city sights and to the top of Mt Aksla.  We get off the ship just after 10, our tour starts at 11. The weather is cloudy and a bit cool, top temp of 15.

We board our train and head off. The majority of the town was destroyed by fire in 1904 and was completely rebuilt by 1908 in the Art Nouveau style. The houses are visually striking. The views from the train back down to the harbour are fantastic. When we get to the top we have 15 mins for photos. The views back down on the town are incredible. You can walk up to the top from the town via 418 steps that look very daunting. After our train ride we walk around for another hour admiring the houses before getting back on board for lunch. 

Afternoon trivia sees us score 15, the winners had 18. We don’t seem able to get past 15.

We have an early show tonight, it is The Fabulous Funky Fiddler “E Sarah Carter”. She is fantastic. She is moving around the stage and among the audience, she plays one piece while standing on her head! Her experience included playing in Lord of the Dance. She was very entertaining.

I have found out that the fish we caught were pollock.

Tomorrow is our last port of Bergen and then we set sail for Southampton.

Tuesday 28 August At Sea

At sea

We had a great nights sleep last night, sleeping through to 8.15. The beds are so comfortable, but the air conditioning tends to dry you out overnight. It was very smooth sailing and after the physical day yesterday we needed a good nights sleep.

Today is cloudy with the occasional sunny breaks, top temp of only 14. It is cool outside but comfortable walking round the ship. The seas are slight with minimal movement. We have a relaxing day today and play cards in the afternoon. Ann started off as the banker in pontoon and nearly cleaned us out. All but Ross had a turn at banker and generally the banker won. It was great fun with lots of laughs.

Our waiter Arthur has warmed to us and he is now folding napkins into risqué poses. He is very funny. Tomorrow we are at Alesund our second last port of call.

Lofoten Islands

Gravdal

Today we think is Monday, getting harder and harder to remember the days. It was a bit rough overnight with the ship moving around a fair bit, but everyone is ok. The boys are up early for our fishing trip. Our tour starts at 10 and we must make sure we are on an early tender to be on time. After breakfast we line up for tender tickets at 8.30. They start to allocate tickets at 8.50 and we are in the first 50. We get called to the first tender just after 9 and we are on the dock by 9.20. The weather is cool with a max of 14 and occasional showers, but light winds.

Daniela is a bit worried when no one has turned up by 10 so she rings them. Turns out there was a mix up as we are on the 12 o’clock tour. 

It is drizzling rain when we are picked up by the skipper, a friendly guy who finishes every sentence with “ya”. As we have some time to kill he takes us on a tour o the fishing village and the fish factory. The factory is stocked with dried cod and there is a sorting process going on for export. It has a very strong odour. When we get back he suggests we put on spare dry suits that available. 

12 o’clock arrives and we get on board. There are 12 including us. We head out and it is about a 35 minute cruise to the fishing grounds. The boat is rolling quite a bit in the swell. We arrive and after circling around the skipper gives us the ok to start fishing. We are using heavy gear with up to four lures on the line and we drop the line to the bottom and start jigging the line up and down. I catch the first fish which is about 8 inches long. Then others start catching them. I get another and then Ross gets a double. We drift off the mark and the skipper gets us to bring the lines in and he circles round again to find the mark again. Ross has three, I have four and Luggy has one. The skipper then says he will find some bigger fish so we head off again. 

At the bigger fish spot Ross is a magnet. First he brings in a whopper, about three feet long. The skipper has a wicked looking gaff that he expertly brings the fish on board. Others are getting fish but Luggy and I can’t get anything. I have missed a couple but Luggy just keeps getting caught in other lines. We are all fishing pretty close to each other and when a fish is on it is easy to get a crossover. In the meanwhile Ross has another double with two big fish. Then Ross gets another and another and I finally catch one and Luggy gets tangled again. It is ironic as I am beside Ross less then 4 feet away and Luggy is beside me, but it was Ross who gets all the action. He is exhausted! We think he had special help from Scuffy!!

We return to the dock and are then driven back to the ship tender. It was a great day, the skipper was fantastic and others on board who had sailed with him before say he is the best. We thank Daniela and her partner Wilfred for organising the trip. They also caught a number of big fish. When we get back the girls were worried as I told Ann I thought we would be back around 2 but it is now 4.30. We could not contact them and they had no details of the fishing trip. They had a lovely day washing clothes.

For dinner tonight we had another speciality restaurant, the Sterling streak house and it was another great night. Tomorrow we are at sea all day, so Ross will have time to recover from his strenuous fishing expedition!

Tromso

We all had a great sleep last night, could have been something to do with not drinking? Hope this doesn’t continue.

The weather is very cool and a bit breezy. We have purchased shuttle tickets to get to the city centre. We go to two museums, the Polar museum which is very informative on how the early trappers/hunters lived with exhibits of stuffed animals and the hunters utensils and weapons. The polarium was another museum which included a film on the northern lights and the wilds of the arctic. They had an aquarium which included fish and seals and a couple of king crabs. After the museums we headed back to the ship arriving around 1.40 and then had lunch. Bombed out at trivia again with 14. After trivia we head out on deck to view the sail away. Luggy loves to watch the untying of the ropes. I have a look at the other side and there is a tug boat preparing to help pull us away as their is another ship berthed in front of us and the wind is blowing us into the dock. 

I race back to the other side to let Ross know that Scuffy was on the other side. He quickly follows me and he is so excited to see Scuffy at work. Scuffy did a great job in pulling us out from the berth and Ross is so proud!

We head and inside to break our no alcohol fast! While relaxing with a drink we see Wilfred our fishing partner standing in line for the restaurant and on his phone. Turns out he was trying to contact me about meeting up tomorrow for our fishing trip. We agree on a time and place.

It is a beautiful sunny afternoon, a bit cool but lovely clear skies, hopefully promising for tomorrow.

Honningsvag

This morning (Saturday) we arrived in Honningsvag. It is fairly still, cloudy to overcast and cool but not as cold as yesterday. We expect a temperature of 15 degrees. There was a bit of movement of the ship overnight but we all slept well.

Honningsvag is the last town in the northern hemisphere and is only 1304 miles from the North Pole. We are told to prepare for four seasons in a day, so it feels like home. The town is bigger than we thought, although the population is only 3250, it seems bigger with houses and businesses. With our cruise ship the population has doubled.

We decided not to take tours to the North Cape as the wind could be howling with low cloud and fog. We thought it was not worth the money or risk so we would around the town and to the lookout. Their church was one of the very few buildings left standing after the nazis during world war 2 retreated and razed the whole area.

The weather is quite mild, no wind and no rain, maybe those who went to the cape had a good day. In any case we have enjoyed ourselves in Honningsvag.

We have now started having a regular coffee meeting around 3.15 which then leads into to trivia. Improved with 15 but 3 off the winners. We have had an alcohol free day today and for pre dinner drinks I had a Diet Coke while everyone else had No - Jitos an alcohol free cocktail. Luggy nearly chocked on the mint while sucking the dregs out of his drinks!

Our waiter was most surprised when we did not have wine at dinner, but we told him we would make up for it tomorrow night. After dinner there was going to be a sailway party but the weather did not cooperate so it was postponed.

We are at Tromso tomorrow.