Travels and Birds: Hurtigruten Day 3

Beautiful scenery all the way north

The weather held as we entered Day 3. While there were a few clouds on the horizon, they were accompanied by plenty of sunshine. We seem to be bringing good weather to the Nordland. The ride continued to be smooth with blue skies and sunshine.

As we cross the Arctic Circle

Our first point of interest was crossing the Arctic Circle which happened early in the morning. We all entered the contest to pick the exact moment of crossing. At midmorning we passed Fugleøya, the bird island. Some 30,000 puffins and razorbills nest on the west side of this island. Unfortunately, we passed on the east side, so all I saw was three puffins flying past the ship and about 100 gulls following a fishing trawler sharing its harvest. An unusual geological phenomenon of the island is a sand river. About a third of the way up, sand makes its way out of the hillside. According to our guide, geologists are not sure the origin of the sand.

Fugleøya

The white spot is the river of sand

At about 10:30 Jim and Marcia left us on a boat to visit one of the largest glaciers in Norway. During their ride to the glacier they were treated to some good views of sea eagles. They disembarked at the glacier for a short bus ride where they had some excellent views. Then it was a long ride over the water to rejoin us in Bodø where they found Finnish friends waiting to greet them. The friends has come from Finland to do some fishing near Saltstreumen.

Cherie and John opted for the RIB tour to Saltstraumen. RIBs are special Zodiak-type boats that carried them up the channel to Saltstraumen, perhaps the largest whirlpool in the world. This is an amazing site which we viewed from the bridge on our previous visit. The previous blog entry is here. The whirlpools are created by the tides rushing through the channel at millions of gallons per minute reaching speeds of seven knots per hour. The whirlpools can be ten meters across and five meters deep. They are exciting enough that Jules Verne used it as a model in one of his books.

A lot of planes

While the others were off on their adventures, Linda and I took a shuttle to the Aircraft Museum. Bodø has a long aviation history and one of the longest runways this far north. The airfield was important during the Cold War as protection in the Arctic. Those of us old enough to remember when Francis Gary Powers was shot down flying his U-2 spy plane over Russia in 1960 probably don’t remember that he intended to land in Bodø. The museum is excellent divided into military and civilian sections. The military section begins with a graphic showing the world’s first aerial bombing over Venice in the 1850s. The display included about 20 planes of various ages and interesting display panels. One diorama used peepholes of varying heights to show the view of a battlefield as you would see it from ground level a balloon and an airplane.

Diorama of Bodø harbor during the war

In the civilian section, we saw several early flying attempts, both failed and successful. Several panels and planes showed the development of air transportation including one mockup of an early passenger cabin. It was a good way to spend the afternoon even though the hour and forty minutes we had to spend there was way too short.

Probably Stamsund

Our first stop after Bodø was Stamsund on Lofoten Island. Three groups left the ship there to do one of the Viking tours A couple of decades ago, a farmer discovered the remains of a Viking longhouse atop one of the hills of his farm. Since then the house has been recreated and tourists can visit the replica and enjoy a Viking meal. Those who took one of the tours enjoyed one of those options along with a lovely bus ride on these beautiful islands. The ship headed on to Svolvær where we would spend a couple hours while the Viking tours caught up. Linda and I had spent three days on Lofoten six years ago, so it was fun to wander the streets a while enjoying the small town atmosphere.

A sailor's wife waving goodbye

Entrance to Svolvær harbor

Svolvær

A small market

Just to prove we were there

The hotel we stayed in on our first trip

Racks drying cod for sale down soutn

After leaving Svolvær, our ship took a short ‘detour’ to visit Trollfjord. Barely a two kilometers in length and less than 100 meters wide, Trollfjord is perhaps the narrowest of Norway’s fjords, barely wide enough to accommodate our ship, the Kong Harald. The other big cruise ships we see from time to time certainly don’t fit and would be much too long to turn around even if they did. A bit of evening sun on the mountaintops above us highlighted the stark beauty of the sheer walls rising over 1000 meters above our heads.