Honningsvåg and a rainy day

As we set off from the restocking dock at Tromsø we didn’t even realise we were moving, so quiet was the ship’s motion. Our afternoon (lunch, sleep, writing of blog) drifted into evening and we headed to the bar while the ship was seemingly inching along.

This was our second visit to the Arran Restaurant. We weren’t sure we should return after the “German Incident“ where Gabrielle’s neighbour on the next table nearly ended up in her lap as he enthusiastically tried to explain what he had ordered. We had William again who we discovered is French. He hides his accent well and deliberately.

This is a new voyage so some things don’t always work. The restaurants for example have all abandoned their expensive tech systems for paper! It’s also the first time that they have offered all inclusive so we really are guinea pigs!

Gabrielle was about to make a complaint about all the announcements that echo across the tannoy on a regular basis, but William calmed her down. With another Bailey’s! And suddenly we are on open sea and for the first time there’s a sense of motion. Still, alcohol will dissolve all that. Prosecco, rosé, red wine, Bailey’s, aquavit. And they did.

We woke next morning very slowly and tentatively with a slight feeling of excess after the evening’s exploits which we blamed on the constantly pouring hand of William. Down to breakfast and we ate and drank carefully while the Trollfjord pulled into Honningsvåg. This little settlement is the northernmost in mainland Norway and it huddles in a natural harbour just shy of the North Cape. It’s a city, yet has a population of only 2500. The mist that pervades it you can believe has been here for centuries and the temperature was around 8 degrees with an expected giddy high of 9C. And we haven’t finished going North yet! We’re trying not to think of the 20-odd degrees back at home.

First priority was laundry however. The facility was deserted and so we bought a couple of washing blobs and headed for the machines. Apart from all the settings being in Norwegian, what could possibly go wrong? They seemed to wash ok and the driers did their thing so that, all of a sudden, there were neatly stacked piles of clean clothes. Magic!

This stop had no excursions that appealed to us so we decided to have a port day and watch the world go by from the warmth of the lounge. The population had probably doubled with our ship and another Hurtigruten vessel - the Nordkapp - in port. A very enthusiastic guide from the other ship wildly waved a Norwegian flag to herd his flock. As we sat in the windows at the front of the ship, a grin of satisfaction passed across our faces. It was raining. Passengers were off hiking, trugged up in boots, over-trousers, puffer jackets, gloves, walking poles. Meanwhile, we decided it looked a bit damp and anyway, we were getting exercise trotting up and down to the laundry.

Lunch was early as some of the intrepid explorers had had to have theirs at 11:30am, so we popped in to the restaurant and had a little something: mostly smoked fish on my part. I watched a very disoriented woman walk past our table, drop some waffles on the floor from her plate, return to the buffet next to us and carefully remove the dropped waffles which she had picked up with her fingers and replace them on the serving dish. She then selected some new ones! Buffet. Don’t you love it?

After lunch and sorting out the dried washing we headed out into the mean streets of Honningsvåg. We were last here nine years ago and the place, it has to be said, looked much prettier and nicer with snow than it does now without. It was bizarre to walk to the same landmarks and see them in a totally different light, even down to where lorries parked outside the jetty gates, the snow covered phone box or the little church.

Meanwhile, the Nordkapp had performed some strange manoeuvres, docking one way and the other., leaving its berth and turning around, only to reverse the process for everyone to get back on before departure. It was docked where we had landed, nine years ago so we soon recognised some of the local features, even without snow.

Tonight we head out past North Cape and across the Barents Sea towards Svalbard where we’ll make landfall the day after tomorrow. No more exciting laundry to do, so what will Gabrielle write about?