The North Cape

The big, interesting port was meant to be Trondheim, but the night before we were to call there, we hit a force 5 storm. That was also the evening we had booked into the fancy dining room. The dining room started out with 27 diners, but by the end of the meal only seven intrepid diners remained. Happily, neither Bruce nor I were affected by it and, in fact, we found it entertaining, rather like watching a floor show as the waiter tried to balance wine glasses on a tray, the empty trays went flying across the floor and crashes from the kitchen were heard. Apparently, a giant pot of tomato sauce flew off the stove making the kitchen look like the scene of a mass murder. Anyway, the storm put us way behind schedule so there was a much shorter stop at Trondheim. Of course it was pouring rain so though Bruce braved the wet, I stayed on the ship. After all, we're due to stop at Trondheim on the way back & I can walk around then. There followed more days of greyness but there was one bright spot - literally. For about 5 minutes the Northern Lights appeared.

Granted, these weren't the National Geographic, multi-colored rippling curtains of light one wishes for, but it was something.

Day 6 found us in Honnigsvåg where we took our only shore excursion. Upon arrival we were herded down a long, snow and ice-covered road to the parking area, past the statue of Bamse, a WWII hero.

We boarded our bus to the North Cape and after the bus pulled out, our guide told us that she hoped we would make it to Nordkapp since the roads were so icy. Yesterday's tour got only halfway, then had to turn around. This didn't seem to phase our driver who zipped along as though there was no ice at all, something which was a bit frightening as you looked out the window at the very long fall into the sea. The landscape along the way was snowy and lovely.

I remember Nordkapp from my visit 30+ years ago when I worked on the Ocean Princess. Of course, that trip was during the summer months of the midnight sun. It was warm and sunny and at the Nordkapp visitor's center we were greeted by Sami children and their pet reindeers. This time, we were greeted by howling sub-zero winds.

We were good tourists, though, and made our way across the plateau to the official Nordkapp marker.

The scenery from that spit of land was properly dramatic.

We trudged back to the visitor's center

which had some interesting displays about Nordkapp's role in WWII, a small museum dedicated to King Chulalongkorn, the Thai king who visited Nordkapp in 1907, and The Cave of Lights which showed how the Northcape looks during its four seasons. There was a film but its timing was such that had we watched it we would have missed our bus back to Honnigsvåg. There was also a display of sea birds of the North Cape, complete with streaks of dripping guano on the rocks.

We had read on one of the displays that it was customary for explorers who reached Nordkapp to toast with a glass of champagne, so we popped over to the cafe and had a quick toast.

It was then time to make our way to the bus so I posed for one last picture by the visitor's center sign.

More snowy scenery on the way back.

Then back to the ship.

At least we made it off the sip for the day.