Rainy and gray as we cross the Arctic Circle. We crossed a bit earlier than expected, so I missed the moment, but I don't think whales and polar bears jump up to greet you anyway, so I'll be happy for that extra half hour of snoozing. The landscape of the next day or so has been unusually barren, but we will then come across a tiny village or a lonely house that demonstrate the incredible will to populate and eke out a living from the fish of this area. We have also passed a number of fish farms that have inserted their nets and their technologies into this crazy place that shouldn't belong to humans at all.
I've kept the telephoto lens in the cabin, so I've missed photos of some of the interesting things along the shore, such as one red cottage out on a lonely peninsula that had rock walls built up on two sides and it's back against the rocky hill/mountain behind it to protect it from the weather. There is also a small town--starts with an O, I'll have to check a map--where the townspeople come out every day to wave to the Hurtigruten ships as they go by. I watched a car snake its way across the shore and through the small town, only to see it parked at the dock and (presumably) its driver waving as we went by.
I assume this is an old tradition, perhaps born of the fact that the Hurtigruten line is not a cruise line strictly speaking. It is a cargo and mail line that also takes tourists. So we stop in many ports where we only stay for a half hour or so, and we load and unload cargo and people on short commutes. Actually, it's pretty cool to be on a working ship. When my friends Cheryl and Tara traveled north with the Hurtigruten last winter the boat was mostly filled with oilmen going to the rigs up in the arctic.
Ann commented yesterday on how cool it is to hear the mix of languages on the ship, and she's right. All announcements are in Norwegian, English, and German, and indeed, those languages dominate around us (though there might be some Swedish mixed in, but my ear isn't well enough attuned to the differences to know for sure). I am able to understand at least the gist of most of what I hear in German. There is a kind of iciness in the faces of many of the people on ship that is curious to me, and may come from everyone's sense of linguistic isolation. Silly me, I expect people would respond to that with gestures such as a smile and nod of the head when passing a stranger, but this is more of a glaring staring thing.
I can't find my brush, so maybe it is just my hair.
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Location:near Bøde
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