Woke this morning to the ship's PA announcing that we would be crossing the Arctic Circle in 10 minutes!!
Managed to get on deck in time to photograph Hestmann Island which lies exactly on the Arctic circle. Time: about 7.25am and still very dull and freezing cold.
After that excitement, enjoyed breakfast and then had to be ready for the "ceremony" to celebrate the crossing. For this we were summonsed to the back deck (freezing) and King neptune turned up accompanied by the Captain, Chief Engineer and tour director. Bit of a funny speech about sea-sickness and rough seas and then the "ceremony" involved those brave enough fronting up to have ice cubes poured down you back and then given a glass of schnapps and a certificate as 'reward" - What the hell, you're not here all that often so we did it - lots (probably more sensible) did not. Needless to say we ended up very cold and quite wet. Got a certificate to prove it all though.
Main Port of call today was Bodo which is the hedquarters of Norway's defense department and has an airforce field so jets were zooming overhead quite frequently. Not much of a town really but we enjoyed walking around and found a really good coffee shop!! The layers are inceasing for these town walks. I am now up to t-shirt, warm long-sleeve coat, big coat, scarf, gloves, warm cap and Ellizabeth is the same - believe me, you need every bit. Temperature range predicted for tomorrow is -3 to +1 !! Time to add warm undershirt and long cycle pants to the layering process I think.
Beautiful beer marinated beef for dinner tonight. The meals really are fabulous.
Trivia: The voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes is 2500km and is billed as "The world's most beautiful voyage" - can't argue with that!!
Cap report: just about stuck on
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