Day 4 - The world’s most beautiful ferry? And the world’s most covid compliant company?
I have written before about whether or not the Hurtigruten boat trip is a cruise or a ferry. So I won’t bore you with that again. But I am using it as a ferry - just a rather a long one. This time I have eschewed the pleasures of set dinners with random passengers I have no wish to get to know and booked only breakfast. The rest of my meals I will take in the cafe on the top deck whilst watching the (mostly dark) world go by. Arguably the most beautiful place to have a coffee and a sandwich! And that way I don’t have to talk to anybody.
And a ferry of this length (4 days!) allows plenty of time for reflection, reading and of course writing this nonsense (sorry).
So what of the covid compliance? Well, just after I joined the ship yesterday a letter was left outside every cabin and an announcement was made that to read it was a requirement. Dutifully nearly everyone returned to their cabin to be told they must remain there until tested for covid due to the fact that the company management had decreed that there must be asymptomatic carriers of covid aboard due to the fact that nearly everyone was at least double and mostly triple vaccinated. Well, I would have thought that was obvious. Didn’t feature in their marketing though, did it!
I said nearly everyone dutifully returned to cabin. Being the belligerent, disagreeable, non-compliant person I am, I didn’t … until another announcement letting the few like me know the contents of the letter (as we clearly hadn’t read them) - and we had better be in our cabins to be tested - pronto!
I’ve got mixed feelings about this approach. I understand the wish to keep people as safe as possible but everybody on board came on knowing the risks which were well publicised. Hurtigruten have been marketing hard to get people to return to their ships. They have made a big thing of being covid safe, but given their core market - retired older western couples (there aren’t actually that many single nutters like me) - some asymptomatic carriers were inevitable. I rather thought I had signed up for the risk. I was happy to provide a vaccine pass and be temperature tested on boarding. But I didn’t think I had signed up to be tested within hours of embarkation and to be restricted to my cabin for the remainder of the trip if found positive. I’m sure its in the small print and maybe I am naive, but there is a mismatch between Hurtigruten’s marketing and their somewhat draconian approach to infection control in the light of where we are now in this pandemic, given they have enthusiastically embraced the return to travel. Of course if I had tested positive I would be even more pissed off. And while I am on one, it took them almost 4 hours to confirm that those who had not been contacted were indeed negative. I was asleep by then! But I do feel sorry for the few that have tested positive and now cannot leave their cabins. Presumably they are having doggy bags of food delivered. I just have a runny nose. And I try to be outside when sneezing fits hit me!
Right, down to the business of the day. My reflections on an Arctic winter. I know, you can’t wait. This far south in late November - I'm still in the arctic circle, about 68ºN if you are interested (no?!) - we get about an hour or so of actual daylight! And that’s as well as the several hours of civil twilight. So its almost a full day! Well, about 5, maybe almost 6, hours of practical light actually.
As predicted I was in my cell (sorry cabin) by 9 last night and in the land of nod, not long after. Combination of having slept poorly previous couple of nights, my stinky cold and the gentle rocking of the boat, and I was asleep for over 10 hours! Bliss! I still woke up to pitch darkness just before 8am though. And thought that a good enough reason to enjoy the “twilight rise” on my own on the outside top deck. Before breakfast. Funnily enough I had the place to myself. No camera, no phone, just me and the emerging half light. Oh, and it was cold! About -10º I think. But nothing like a bit of solitude to help with gratitude for all the things I have to be thankful for. This mindfulness is paying off!
But, having booked only breakfast, I needed to make the most of it so after warming up a little but before the rush I helped myself to generous portions of granola, fruit, yoghurt, eggs, hash browns, toast and coffee. Won’t be needing lunch then!
The boat is clearly nothing like full. I’ve no idea if Hurtigruten have in any way restricted numbers but compared to my last trip a few years ago I reckon less than half the numbers are aboard. Makes social distancing easy and with any luck nobody noticed what I pig I was at breakfast.
And so the day has passed in quiet contemplation, regular visits to the open decks for as long as my toes will take it, interspersed with visits to the top deck cafe for as much coffee as my body will take. The sun, although technically above the sea level horizon for about an hour or so, did not actually appear, hidden as it was behind the mountains. But the beauty and remoteness of the place was unaffected. Some of the isolated properties would make lovely pics with the sun on them. It might make living in them better too. I imagine its hard enough to live in the towns this far north, I can't imagine what it is like to live out of them! And as for the indigenous semi-nomadic Sami reindeer herders - that does sound like a hard way to live!
As the sun set (a mere hour or so after it had risen), I was struck by two things. The first was (I know it's obvious) how close its setting position was to its rising. I didn't actually see either of them, due to the mountains but the glow in the sky when it rose was just about due south (just to the east of it obviously) and it set, well ... just about due south (just to the west of it). It is obvious but it hadn't occurred to me, as we are so used to the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Of course it varies at every latitude with the time of year, but this far north, at this time of year, if it comes up at all, it goes down again very close. Just felt a bit ... unexpected. Bit like the midnight sun in the summer, which just about touches the horizon and goes back up again. Come to think of it that is even weirder!
Oh, and the second thing ... I managed to get a couple of quite nice pictures of the moonset, lit by the fading sun. (Still a lot of white, but quite nice I think!)
As darkness fell, about mid afternoon, we approached Tengelfjord (might have the name wrong, you know me!), a 26km narrow fjord, which at times is probably no more than a couple of hundred metres wide. In the daylight it is magnificent, somehow made all the more so by passing through it on a bloody big ship! And its impressive at night as well. It will surprise nobody that I was one of ... two people out on the deck as we passed through. I considered trying to capture it on film but I reckoned my fingers would have frozen in the attempt. I've got a tripod but that isn't going to keep the damn camera steady on a ship for the exposure length required - it was just about pitch black. So I decided on two courses of action: 1) just enjoy it, and 2) nick a photo from google! So this is what it looks like in the light:
That will do for another day. I’ll finish as usual with some great pictures of the beauty of frozen north. Well I would if I had taken any, you’ll just have to make do with the ones I got!
Another one of the moonset
The sun is up - briefly!
And then it sets again, in much the same direction!
It's still the Post Boat, therefore still a ferry. So there!
Hardy cormorants (possibly?). Someone will correct me!
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