DAY FOUR: King Neptune and Finnsnes-Tromso

Dining room entrance with ship location on monitor

During a fine breakfast of smoked salmon, toasted dense sunflower seed bread and soft boiled eggs, I finally sampled some of the tubes of mystery flavors mentioned a couple days ago. Caviar was easy, but BaconOst appears to bacon-flavored mayonnaise...won't be eating much of that!

Setting up for breakfast

Mid-morning everyone gathered on the aft portion of the upper deck to learn the winner of the contest to "guess the exact time" of our crossing of the Arctic Circle. First, we all had to summon up King Neptune from the Deep by hailing him. After 3 rousing efforts, he finally appeared from behind the crowd...who knew Neptune would use the rear stairs?

King Neptune himself!

After reciting a short speech in 4 languages, the German winner was announced and was given the actual Hurtigruten flag that was flying from the mast when we crossed the Arctic Circle--signed by our captain. Then the winner also became the first to be baptized by King Neptune with ice water down the back of his shirt. He then did a shot of some warm fruity alcohol drink and was given a very nice "Polarsirkel Sertifikat" on heavy bond paper showing all the pertinent information regarding our ship and crossing date. I joined the queue to be baptized as well and now have my own Sertifikat.

Passengers waiting to exit ship at a port

At 11:15am, we arrived at Finnsnes for a 30 minute stop. I decided to take a walk into town to see what was happening. The answer was not much. I stopped at an optical shop to get my sunglasses adjusted/tightened and met their optometrist. Have not yet met a Norwegian who does not speak English in addition to Norwegian--and usually another language or two.

Tromso bridge over 1 km long

Arctic Cathedral

After lunch, Manfred and I took advantage of a 4 hour stop in Tromso to visit the Polar Museum, see the Arctic Cathedral and walk around town.

Tromso (pop. 69,000) is considered to be the "capital of Arctic Norway" and was the departure point for a number of polar expeditions, including Roald Amundsen's famous South Pole expedition. Kenny and Linda took an hour walk around town and then headed back to the ship to be ready for cocktail hour.

This evening we crossed paths with another southbound Hurtigruten ship, the Richard With. Captain With was the first captain in 1893 to guide a sailing ship along the very difficult Norwegian coastline route we now know as the Hurtigruten (fast route). Each day we have crossed paths with a southbound Hurtigruten ship and each ship respectfully produces three short blasts of their horns in greeting.

It is now after 1am and, although it is a bit cloudy, the sunlight is strong with good visibility for miles. Today learned that, after months of winter darkness, Norwegians here in the north often remain chronically sleep-deprived during the summer months to soak up the sunlight while it is available. However, I am not Norwegian and so am heading off to bed!

 

Posted by TBW Travel Today!