The Purple Penguin

So, remember in the last post I said we’d probably not see any more northern lights. Yeah. Remember that.

So after crossing the arctic circle the ship offered special stamps – the first we knew of this was the announcement tone and then Postman Pat theme song playing. In Norwegian. Joe and I just stared at each other, then I said ‘is that . . . ?’ and Joe nodded. Very surreal. Then they announced the special stamp. Oh, right. Ok then.

So we bundle up to go to the Viking feast which is held at the Lofoten Viking Museum. We all piled onto the bus and waved goodbye to the ship – it sailed on and we met it at a later docking. The bus ride there was about half an hour and we had a tour guide talking about the history and what to expect at the feast – he a bit of an unusual name for a Viking: Christian! The reconstruction of the long house is excellent and we were met at the door with a woman carrying a torch, the house itself was lit with oil lights and candles. They did a reconstruction of a mid-winter ceremony, Jul Blót, to bring back the sun and then we ate. We had a very good mead, not too sweet, and a huge plate of lamb, carrots, swede (rutabaga), barley porridge (lovely flavours), a soured cream type thing, berry compote, and bread (it was a yeast bread but cooked like a shortbread and served cut in pie shapes). It was all good. Then we got to look around the museum before heading back to the ship and getting more information about the area and Vikings from our guide.

On the way out to the Viking feast and the way back it was pouring with snow and sleet. Horrible weather. So we get on the boat and Joe says that his app is showing a good chance of the northern lights. I laughed. But we decided to stand on the deck anyway as we left port we saw the stocks for drying the fish. And right when Joe’s app had said, we saw the best showing of the lights we’ve seen. They were all over the sky and could be seen from all over the ship. They were selling a mug of Trollfjord knert (warm drink – sort of an alcoholic tea!) so we went and got one then watched more northern lights from the stern – leading off with a red/yellow and moving across the sky forming a green bridge. I could see why some ancients said they were the spirit bridge. It was lovely. We then headed to the bow to see the entrance of the Trollfjord which is only 100m wide. It’s pretty impressive even when all you can really see is lit with the ship’s spotlights! During the winter the ships are only allowed to go to the entrance. Then as we moved away from the fjord the northern lights lit up the sky again. So we stood and watched those until around 1am when the clouds moved back in.

So I slept in this morning. Or tried to. Lots of announcements, when we stopped at Harstad and when we left (I got up at 8am to see the medieval church from the ship as we went past), then to announce that there was a presentation, then sales in the shop, and so I finally gave up and got up. While I was trying to sleep, Joe was playing with his app. Which sounds more interesting than it is. Went out on the snowy deck to see cloud and snow, turned around and went back in. Pretty much like that all day to Tromsø (though we did head out to see the tidal current, not that we saw much!) Once in Tromsø we bundled into lots of clothing and headed out for the bus for the silent whale watching tour. It’s on a wooden sailing vessel with electric engines so is almost completely silent. We were given oversuits to wear so I took off my outer layer (I had several layers on) to get into the oversuit. We were also getting a short version of the tour, only about an hour. So we’re all struggling into our oversuits and as we were leaving the dock and getting the safety briefing an ocra passed by the boat. So much for safety briefing! The guide said ‘quickest whale spotting on our tour!’ Then we got hit by a squall, ice squall. It was pretty horrible – in fact we also got from the guide ‘worst whale watching weather ever’. yay. But it did blow over and we saw lots of orca, even in the dark! I saw the blow of humpback and Joe got to see the fluke as it dived. So it was good. And overhead? The northern lights. The silent ship is wonderful, you can hear the whales blow, so were hearing them all around the ship at one point. Then headed back to the dock and into another ice squall. And the entire bus ride back to the boat it was snowing heavily.

So now getting dry and waiting to go to dinner. There is a tree decorating this evening and tomorrow we celebrate with a large Norwegian Christmas dinner – after we go up to North Cape! Christmas eve is the main celebration for Christmas in Norway.