Today was Saturday and would bring us to the end of our northbound journey. We arrived in Tromso at about 3PM. We had just enough time to eat breakfast and be checked out of our rooms at 11AM at the stop before Tromso. We stored our luggage and enjoyed our last few moments on the boat. Here is a picture of where we spent a lot of our time for the trip – at the “arcade” – the playroom is just to the left of where Ethan and Nic are sitting. Gwyneth said goodbye to her friend Preetanjali – we got the correct spelling of her name and an email address. Soon after docking we were off the boat and headed to the Hotel Rica for another place to store our luggage. We would be heading back on the southbound Hurtigruten at 1:30AM that morning. The ferry was to arrive at 11:45PM. So we had a day to fill up!
Here is a picture of everyone getting off of the Nordkapp - built in 1994. Take note of its size and remember that when you see our next ship - the Lofoten - built in 1964. It was raining and cloudy in Tromso so we did not get to see the "midnight sun".
Our first stop was the Polaria museum where we were treated to some very cute bearded seals. It was open until 7PM and we planned to stay there until it closed as we had nowhere else to go and it was raining. Gwyneth ran into her friend Preetanjali and family so she had a second chance at goodbye. We watched both 15 minute films that they showed, played in the play area with cool slide, we looked at the fish, and looked at the seals. We were ready to leave at 7PM and we took the 15 minute walk back to the hotel. We had decided to eat dinner there – especially since Jan said it was her treat!
We were probably sitting down to dinner at 7:30PM and had a pleasant evening. The restaurant was empty and we had a nice view of the water. Ethan fell asleep in about 2 seconds in Nic’s arm – right after we had ordered him a cheese plate of course – and we laid him across some comfy chairs. He didn’t wake up during dinner. The waiter was very friendly and terrific with Gwyneth (he presented the ketchup to her like a wine bottle). The adults tried the Halibut (Jan), the clippfish (Deb) and the lamb (Nic). Clippfish was made from the salted/dried cod that we saw hanging on racks and so it seemed like it ought to be tried.
The waiter had highly recommended the lamb (see photo) and told us that it the lambs were raised locally , high on some cliffs, and were only brought down once …. to be slaughtered I guess. I didn't want to think about it too much. Anyway, the lamb was excellent. The fish dishes where good, but not like the lamb. It was amusing because the lamb was my first choice and Nic was going to get the clippfish until he heard it involves olives, so we switched and he got the better dish. Also, there were no visible olives in the clippfish dish so I think I was duped. Gwyneth got a kid’s sized hamburger that was still rather large and she loved it. She is in the picture with her appetizer on the house – some kind of sausage that was very good. And yes she tried it!
After stretching out dinner as long as possible, until about 10:30PM we moved to the lobby area where we would be able to see the ferry arrive. Also, Ethan had woken up a bit and Nic was looking for a more comfortable chair. The ferry arrived almost on schedule and thankfully by then the rain had stopped. We immediately noticed that the Lofoten looked like the Nordkapp's baby brother. I was thinking "one of these ships is not like the other". We schlepped our stuff a short way over to the Lofoten – the oldest ship in the Hurtigruten fleet. So times were about to change in ways we couldn’t imagine!
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