Hurtigruten; Wednesday, 06 February, 2013

By now I had clearly developed my sea legs as I had a very pleasant night’s sleep, in spite of the ship moving around quite a bit. At breakfast it was clear that about 80% of the passengers had also become at one with the ship, the other 20% were looking as rough as someone who has spent most of the night in the throes of bad sea-sickness.

Just before 9:20 most people went out on deck, into the glorious morning sunrise, and stood there as a single mournful blast on the ships horn saluted the monument to the Arctic Circle and we crossed the invisible line and out of the Arctic region. This was followed by the “traditional” southbound ceremony of having fish-liver oil; I think I preferred the ice cubes down the back on the northbound leg!

First daylight stop of the morning was at Nesna for a few minutes, and then we continued on our journey south, the weather noticeably having improved from the previous biting winds and snow. Just before lunchtime we arrived at Sandnessjøen and had an hour’s stop, so there was enough time to get off the ship and have a little wander around the town.

As the stop at Sandnessjøen coincided with the start of lunch most people were back on board the ship just over half way through the stop to continue the daily grind of consumption of vast quantites of food.

Leaving Sandnessjøen the ship route goes past the mountain range known as the seven sisters, which helped to remove the chill wind that had been blowing across us all morning. This accompanied by the beautiful sunshine saw a sudden rash of deck chairs being erected on decks still glistening with ice.

The beautiful sunshine lasted until the stunning sunset that made the mountains glow red and the sea shimmer pink as we slowly glided into Brønnøysund just before 4pm. I had a wander around the town and took a few sunset pictures before it was time to head back to the boat and continue south to the accompaniment of the 'Captains Dinner'

After dinner we docked again at Rørvik, with the northbound ship arriving just after us. There was an opportunity to look around the Northbound ship, the Richard With. I’d been on an almost identical ship back in 2008, the Nordlys, but I had forgotten quite how enormous they are compared to the tiny Lofoten (though they are themselves dwarfed by modern day cruise liners)

As we left Rørvik and headed for a 2 hour crossing of open sea I settled down to bed.