Hurtigruten; Monday, 27 July, 2015

Due to the way the ship has to manoeuvre to dock at Finnsnes it was a disturbed night sleep. Given the early start yesterday, and an early start today meant that I wasn't best pleased at being woken up at 3am with the sound of the ship doing a three point turn in the harbour.

Not quite as early as the previous day we were up, breakfasted and on the quayside at Hardstat at 8am to join the coach tour across the Vesterålen towards Sortland. The tour was very interesting with lots of excellent views over the island, but due to the nature of the tour there was quite a bit of padding to ensure we reached Sortland at the same time as the ship (taking into account we had to make a ferry crossing part way along the route.)

After lunch we continued on, stopping early afternoon at Stokmarknes to visit the Hurtigruten museum and the MS Finnmarken. I hadn't on my previous visits paid much attention to the history of the ship, but on this visit we were advised to, as the Finnmarken, in it's quite dated way, was in service from 1961 right up to December 1993 when it was finally replaced by our own MS Richard With, a massive leap in comfort, space and technology from what the Finnmarken offered.

Leaving Stokmarknes we headed into the stunning, and narrow Raftsundet, before once again making a short detour into the Trollfjord (so staying up to midnight a few days earlier had actually not been needed, as we passed through it in the late afternoon this time.)

As we were booked on an evening tour over the Lofoten islands we had to have dinner very early at 5:30, just after the Trollfjord so that we could be off the ship as soon as it docked at Svolvær at 6:30.

The evening tour was, if anything, more interesting than the morning one as the Lofoten Islands are themselves are more interesting landscape. The tour included a 90 minute stop in the town of Henningsvær to have a look at a local gallery as one of the two main industries on the Lofoten islands is art (due to the quality of the light) along with stockfish.

From Henningsvær we continued along the islands towards our final destination to Stamsund. However, after having been so good for the rest of the trip so far the weather really started to close in and much of the second half of the trip was done through a murk of low cloud and drizzly rain. By the time we reboarded the boat at Stamsund it was really chucking it down.

Back on the boat there was time for a quick nightcap before turning in.

Weather

Light Rain Heavy Showers
AM PM
Mild (0-10C, 32-50F)
17ºC/63ºF