9th February 2013

My first night asleep on board went well, except for the side thrusters of the ship’s engine roaring into action overnight as we docked in various small ports along the Norwegian arctic fjords.  The day started with me gathering my toiletries and clean clothes amongst an unfamiliar small cabin space. The tiny bathroom and the shower cubicle, that denied the existence of my elbows, was a distant reminder of childhood camping.  After dressing in my black thermal underwear in preparation for my excursion to North Cape (Nordkapp), the northern most point in Europe, and doing my Marcel Marceau impression.

I arrived at breakfast a little before 9.30 am and found it really busy. I was again reminded of the age group I was travelling with as they moved around the breakfast buffet with slow and calculated speed. It would not be advisable to be queuing behind our fellow passengers if I were in a rush to get somewhere. The upmost level of delicacy and patience had to be applied in certain occasions.  The food on offer was fairly basic, the usual hams, jams and breads along with the bitter coffee which managed to get my system into gear ready for the day.  The ship’s tour guide  announced that we would be passing the sister ship MS Polarlys, so we all dashed to the port side deck with cameras in the ready as if waiting for a celebrity on the red carpet.  As the ships passed the Captain on each ship hooted each other in a majestic auditory dipping of the caps in this solitary fjord.  The sound echoed against the snow covered hills on the coast.

We were scheduled to leave the ship at 11.45 for our excursion to North Cape (Nordkapp). I dressed for arctic weather starting with thermal underwear and then layer after layer and finally a padded gilet and then the final layer, a warm jacket, I was now ready in true Michelin man style for anything!  The ship arrived at Honningsvåg, where we were going to board our coach to the northern most point of Europe, North Cape (Nordkapp)! There was a 10 minute walk from the ship to our coach which was very pleasant. It was nice to feel the cold and crisp chill in my face after nearly 18 hours on board. It is surprising how quickly you miss that feeling of solid ground under your feet.

The tour guide on the coach spoke throughout the 45 minute journey describing the local people that are called Sami and their lives feeding on fish and reindeer. The drive took us through the most remote and stunning parts of the earth, covered on one side completely in snow as far as the eyes could stretch. On the other side, the Norwegian Sea was calm and content on the surface under the blue/pink sky.   Each windy road through the mountains revealed yet another stunning scenery, which was lit like a painting by the sun that was shining just a little above the horizon. According to our guide this was the second day the locals had seen the sun in the past 2 months. It was difficult to imagine not seeing the Sun for so long and wonder how amazing it must be to see such beautiful landscape with new eyes after so long.  I wished I could take a panoramic picture of each scene to capture its full majesty in my mind so that I could recall it at will. No camera could capture what my eyes could see at that moment.

The only movable object apart from the 5 buses filled with excited travellers was man on a snowmobile to our left. He was moving around the snow in an elegant way disturbing the calm and untouched snow, creating lines that scratched the shallow undulating snow dunes.

As I emerged from the coach journey through roads among the meandering snow dunes I arrived at the cliff edge with the famous hollow framed globe to mark the most northern point.  We were so far from civilisation and among treacherously dangerous cold weather conditions that our coach convoy needed our own dedicated snowplough to lead the way there!

Getting off the bus I felt pleased with myself as I felt I had the right amount and type of clothing to be warm. So I proceeded to make the most of our stop and take as many photos as possible. It soon became evident that taking photos with heavy duty gloves was not going to be possible. However, as soon as the gloves were off, my hands were shouting to me to put them back on. It was a fine balance between taking as many pictures as possible in this amazing surrounding and not losing any of my toes and body parts to the arctic aggression.  After 30 minutes taking photos, and starting to not have any feelings in my fingers, toes and cheeks, I decided to head to the indoor area which consisted of a restaurant and a gift shop. The hot chocolate in the restaurant warmed my insides in an exquisite way.  Once I could feel my body parts again, I had a look around the gift shop which offered the usual arctic goodies like reindeer skin, polar bear stuffed toys, fur hats and gloves, thick woolly jumpers as well as postcards, etc.  I bought 4 post cards and wrote them on the spot and mailed them off adorned proudly with the North Cape (Nordkapp) stamp.  As this was a special point of the earth, my fridge got two cards in this occasion.  Cool.

Back on board and after stripping of a couple of layers of clothing I settled down with a hot tea and my iPad as the ship sailed onwards around the North Cape (Nordkapp) inching its way through the fjords to Kirkenes.  Around 1730 it was announced that  a local fisherman had boarded with samples of newly caught king crabs which we could view on the stern deck.  So we all dashed to see the fisherman regaling his live catch above his head for us all to photo.  He also allowed us to hold the wriggling live beasts ourselves and have our bravery captured on photo.

At dinner I met my old nemesis, the king crab, on the buffet along with his other sea friends, yes indeed the buffet was full of every sort of sea creature you could dream of plus some you had never seen before.  Needless to say I eat too much and regretted the whole affair as is my usual form with buffets. I sat on the same table with my usual sailing partners, Lynn and Tina and their husbands, which provided pleasant interludes between huge mouthfuls of fish.

After dinner I took my taut belly to the bar for a good soaking before retiring to bed in preparation for more adventures tomorrow.