The Coast of Norway

Hard to get enough sleep when it's light all the time! At  breakfast this morning, the ship glided through a small inlet to the town of Havoysund.  From the aft dining room, I had a great view as the ship swung around180 degrees to moor at the large dock that dwarfed the entire town.  A skinny bridge arced high above the inlet to connect one side of the inlet with the other and still lets ships as big as the Trollfjord come in.  Another town of picture perfect houses and a church with every road leading to the dock.  The hills behind town are covered with large modern white windmills that are all working.  The Norwegian flag flies on the aft deck with a gold-crown seal in the middle that says “POST”.  Hurtigruten doesn’t carry the mail anymore but keeps the honor of flying the mail flag.
Our next stop was Hammerfest, the northern most city in the world at 70 degrees 39’ 48” N.  It has quite a history—and it’s a wonder that it’s still there.  A hurricane flattened the town in mid 1800s, one of Norway’s worst fires leveled it in 1890 and Hitler ordered “no building left standing” as the Germans retreated  further south in 1945. The only building that still stands from 1945 is the graveyard chapel in the cemetery.  But it has a natural, excellent l harbor, has oil and now the largest liquid gas facility in Norway.  The gas is cooled to -160 degrees causing the total volume to decrease by 600%.  It is then economical to ship the cooled gas to Spain and the US.

Hammerfest was the home to two  major accomplishments in science.  It was the first town in Europe to have electric lights to brighten up the constant dark of a northern winter.   Locals are very proud to point out that while London and Paris were still lighting gas lamps nightly, they had electricity.  Norway’s dark  winters are pretty good motivators!!  The other was the work of  scientists from Norway, Sweden and Russia who conducted a survey  at Hammerfest between 1816 and 1852 that lead to an accurate calculation of the size of the earth.  This is commemorated by the Struve Geodetic Arc that is now one of Norway’s seven  UNESCO sites.

Hammerfest  also has reindeer grazing on the grass in the main city park.  They don't seem bothered by people at all!  The above mom and baby let me walk right up to them.

The weather couldn’t be better—warm and sunny and the days are spent reading, eating, visiting with mostly Norwegians and Germans and watching beautiful scenery.  It’s kinda like the Alaska cruise without the gluttony .  Breakfast and lunch are buffets and you’d better like fish!  I didn’t know there were so many ways to serve pickled herring.  I tried three new ones this morning.  All kinds of meats in addition to more fish prepared in numerous ways, cheeses, cereals, eggs and plenty of good strong Norwegian coffee.  In fact, one of the things that they advertise beforehand and sell on the boat is an barn-red insulated coffee cup that you can refill as much as you want during your time on the ship.  The big surprise was the size—it’s 1/3 the size of my Starbucks mug!  People love their coffee here, carry their mugs around and drink around all day.  I just got back from the bar and many people have both beer or wine and their coffee as they are listening to a lounge singer doing American songs!