Hurtigruten; Tuesday, 15 January, 2008

Overnight the ferry had docked in Finnsnes and moved off again without me even waking. What finally brought me out of my slumber were the kitchen staff directly below me starting on the preparations for breakfast. I had a quick shower and just prior to going in for some food, popped out on deck to watch as we docked at the first port of call of the morning, Harstad, we had arrived about 15 minutes early, which meant we had the interesting sight of us having to park in tight behind the northbound ferry, which was due out the time we were due in (This time the ferry was the MS Kong Harald). Overnight it had also been snowing quite heavily and the front of the ship had a pretty hefty deposit (so much for those people who had paid for the luxury suite at the front of the ship, they wouldn’t be able to see out for a while!

The first notable attraction of the morning (after the plentiful breakfast of course) was entering the Risørenna, a 4KM channel dredged out of the fjord in the 1920’s to allow larger boats like the Hurtigruten to pass between the mainland and the islands, rather than having to go out into open sea. At the end of the channel, and marked with a spectacular arched bridge almost exactly the same as that in Tromsø was the next brief stop of the morning Risøyhamn.

After a spectacular three point turn, almost on the spot the ship continued south from Risøyhamn, stopping for about 30 minutes in the town of Sortland which appeared to be a large shopping centre and not much else, the only mention of it I could find in the guidebook was as a centre for changing busses when visiting the Lofoten islands, so I decided to stay on the nice warm ship, and await the next stop, a little over an hour later at Stokmarknes and the Hurtigruten Museum.

In the end it took a little longer to get to Stokmarknes, for no apparent reason. By the time we had tied up it was gone twenty past, which meant there was just over 45 minutes to have a look around the museum, and one of the former ships. I got back a couple of minutes before the horn sounded to let people know we were going, just one person had to pick up their pace on hearing the horn to make it back on board. We then pulled out into the darkness. Supposedly the next part of the cruise is one of the most spectacular, entering the Raftsund with the ship just squeezing down the channel between the mountains, and then up into the Trollfjord. Given that it was now pitch black there wasn’t much of the Raftsund to see, and the diversion via the Trollfjord didn’t take place.

The next stop of the evening was at Svolvær on the Lofoten Islands. This was one of the longer stops of the day and meant there was enough time to have a look around a bit of the town (or what of it you could see in the dark) and visit the Lofoten Krigsmuseum. After having had a look around these it was time to head back to the ship for dinner and the 90 minute sail to the final port of the evening.

The leg from Svolvær onto Stamsund was would could be described as “choppy”, out in the sea it was noticeable that there was quite a swell and the boat was pitching quite a bit. By the time the boat reached Stamsund a significant number of passengers were out on deck “taking the air” and many, including myself, decided that it might be quite nice to get off the boat for 10 minutes or so whilst it was docked up. Eventually the horn sounded and it was time to re-board the boat for the long leg across the sea from the bottom of the Lofoten islands to Bodø, which would require a three hour crossing back across the open sea before we got back into the sheltered water of the fjords, it was going to make it interesting to get to sleep, so as an aid I headed to the bar for a quick night cap before turning in.