The ship arrived in the port town of Havøysund as I woke up at 0815. It was a choppy night with the ship pitching and rolling throughout, so it was nice to find some stability in port in the morning. Today is our last day onboard and we are feeling excited about being able to have a shower tomorrow in a cubicle that is larger than a coffin. My burnt finger has started to peel and scab over, so I did some first aid and bandaged it up to avoid it getting in the way of enjoying the day. At 1115 we docked in Hammerfest, which is the Northern most town in the 'world' where we disembarked for one and half hours of exploring the town.
First stop was the Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society museum just at the quay side, which was essentially a small room housing a life sized stuffed Polar Bear and a handful of other smaller mammals and birds with an equally sized gift shop. I then moved on to town centre walking past a small group of shops and restaurants, which were visited almost exclusively by the disembarking passengers with very few locals. I saw a few locals passing by with very warm welcoming smiles. People watching must be the local’s main activity in this town as various cruise ships birth here on their routes. I walked up to the picturesque church whose architecture was inspired by the drying fish flakes and is said to be the Northern most Church. A snow covered cemetery lay across the road from the church with just the black and grey tops of tombstones protruding above the white snow, reminding me that people in this town live their entire lives in this small quiet town at the furthest north of Europe; whilst the rest of us live in warmer places in an overly stimulated maelstrom of schedules, noise and movement. I noticed very few children around, clearly too dangerous with cars driving around on slippery snow but also no younger Norwegians! Where are they, in Oslo working, in the factories working? Are there any factories? Or maybe they are all involved in the local fishing business? Who knows but this town exists and although quiet there is no sign it is dying.
Back on board for the 1245 departure and my last evening on board, after peeling off of my thermals and warming up in the cabin I grabbed my iPad and went up to the lounge to read and surf the Internet - how nice to be sailing through the fjords in splendid isolation but still in touch with the wider world. How different travel is these days? At 1430 thee ship's tour leader, Anna Olivia Wallinder, gave us a briefing on our disembarkation procedures for tonight. Anna was very suited to her job keeping the passengers engaged with all the on board and ashore activities. She would start most announcements by whistling the tune of 'now or never' over the ship’s speaker, very difficult for women so Anna must have practised long and hard. After the briefing there was still over five hours to go before dinner so I took a nap for about an hour.
The wait for dinner took an age with very little new to discover on ship and the sun now hiding below the horizon the clock ran ever slower. When dinner time arrived with its unexciting fare the boredom was broken by good the company of my fellow diners on my table John, Lynn, Tina and her husband. On our last day we started to get to know each other better. After dinner we retired to the lounge to continue our light banter all the time the clock ticked ever slower. Finally we arrived at Tromsø, I took some night pictures of the city as we arrived at 2345 before we disembarked and walk across the quay to the Radisson Blu hotel. I picked up my room key and my luggage which was transported by Hurtigruten from the ship to hotel reception.