Today we begin our travels South along the coast of Norway. We boarded the Hurtigruten ship Finnmarken, and found our room. 529 is a mini suite, small but comfortable, with a small lounge area, desk, comfortable beds and bathroom. Our cabin is on the port side, so from our windows we see the land and islands sliding by, but the panorama deck is the place to be. A large lounge area with comfortable chairs to relax in front of picture windows and enjoy the scenery. The ship is old but recently refurbished, so very nice to be in.
We enjoyed a lunch sampling all the foods that seemed unusual to us, like herring in mayonnaise, and pickled herring, and caviar, and smoke char, and smoked halibut, and lots of fresh crunchy salads made primarily with one vegetable and flavourings. We then ventured with binoculars and camera in hand, found some seats at the bow end of the panorama deck and began our search for the Northern lights. The weather was perfect, clear blue skies became night very early, the sunset at about 3pm, and about 5pm we saw them, shimmering sweeps of emerald green surging towards us from the island strewn horizon. Dim at first then deepening and glowing and sway across the sky... 20 minutes and they were gone. But what magic on our first night on the ship. Jet lag claimed us again and we missed dinner. Sound asleep at 6.30pm. Max woke, showered and was up by 3am, he is in bed now as I write this, hopefully he has a big afternoon sleep and then a good sleep tonight and can get his head into this time zone.
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