July 11, 2000;  N62º 03’, E004º33’

Course 51º. Speed: 11.5 Kts.  Temperature 45º, sky overcast. The wind is on the port bow from 37º at force 8 gale, 38 Kts.  It is noticeably calmer than last night as we close with the Norwegian coast.  The motion of the boat is mainly a pitching moment.  The fine-entry bows, so suited to ice operations, contribute to the hobby-horse pitching.  We've passed a large cluster of oil platforms in the middle of the North Sea. 

Estimated arrival at the pilot station off Geiranger Fjord is 1315.  We will travel 55 miles up the fjord and 55 miles back.  Thereafter, except for tonight, we will mostly stay inside, keeping to channels between the islands.  It should be quite calm there.

Steve MacLean offers a well-received lecture about the plants we're likely to see in the Arctic.  Arctic plants are his specialty and he is often seen on his knees in the tundra peering through a magnifying glass as he counts stamen and pistils in the tiny blooms.  You can tell the botanists, they’re the ones with the wet knees.

1330 hours. Geiranger Fjord, N62º 26’, E5º 59’.  Wind: calm. 

We have the pilot aboard and are proceeding into the fjord at 13.2 Kts. in a light rain.  It has a wide mouth and car ferries are running back and forth across it.  Everyone has come out onto the foredeck, or in the bridge where it is drier, to photograph mist-shrouded mountains with patches of snow and ice.  Unlike the Orkney and Shetland Islands, the rock faces are heavily forested in spruce and pine.  Geologist Harold Stovall attributes this to the shelter afforded by the hills.

As we cruised deeper into the fjord, the weather cleared so that by time we reached the head, the sky was blue.  The ship stopped a few miles from the head and launched the Zodiacs.  We were in the rubber Zodiac with Steve MacLean and Harold Stovall, respectively a botanist and geologist, who alternated between describing the flora that covered and the rock formations that comprise the sheer cliffs.  Steve recited the story of the seven sisters and their suitor who, rejected, took to the bottle.  A waterfall opposite to the seven has a rock within it roughly shaped like a bottle of whisky. Steve posted a photo of it and did the day's report on the ship's website.  Harold retrieved several rock samples to adorn the ship’s lounge.

Apparently the area serves as a weekend/summer resort for Norwegians.  They seem to compete to see who can erect the most inaccessible cottage.  Many have nothing more than a cable by which supplies can be hauled up the sheer face of the cliff to the home perched on a ledge or set in a small clearing. The area is quite beautiful and everyone got to exercise his or her camera's shutter finger.  During dinner the ship retraced its path back out to sea.   

July 12, 2000,  0930;  N63º 48’, E7º 57’  13.9 Kts; course: 39º, wind 5 Kts.,  from 45º. Seas calm.  Light swell.  Temperature: 50º

We're at sea, paralleling the unpopulated Norwegian coast heading for Rorvic, where we'll pick up a pilot for the Nordland channel.  By dinner we hope to reach Torget Island and make a landing to climb Torghatten Mountain.

The area around Rorvic is famous in Norse mythology as the battleground between giants and trolls in ancient times.  Olle Carlsson promises to tell some of those tales this evening.

Mid morning, Naturalist David Cothran did a well-received Power Point presentation on sea birds.  Lunch was a Swedish affair with several different kinds of herring, lachs (lox), meatballs and, of course, aquavit.  Olle Carlsson led everyone in a Swedish drinking song.

Tom Heffernan lectured in the afternoon about the Vikings and their influence on the language and customs of much of modern Europe.  As we approached the fishing village of Rorvik, a pilot came aboard to guide the ship through the narrow channel.  A modern suspension bridge links Rorvik with the mainland.  After dinner we fetched Torget Island, shaped like a sombrero with a hole through the crown. 

Torget is at N65º 23’ E12º 06’.

A wet landing at the beach brought us to a Norwegian recreation area.  A group hiked the mile or so up a stream bed to the sombrero's hole (a cave that pierces the mountain).  Paul joined this group while Rosemarie elected to take a Zodiac ride.  The ship left us to cruise around the island for the benefit of those passengers who elected not to come ashore.

Paul got about 3/4 of the way up the mountain before being forced to turn back by hordes of insects.  We'd call 'em gnats, the British call them midges.  It was 50+ degrees (just 70 miles south of the arctic circle) and with the exertion of the climb, most of us took off our heavy parkas exposing bare skin to the attack of the gnats. 

Back on the beach, the crew was grilling hotdogs (troll-dogs, they called 'em) and had hot chocolate.  We'd have preferred a cold beer.  Everybody was back aboard by 11 PM.

Over night we passed the Arctic Circle en route to a morning call at Røst Island.  Although we are now above the Arctic Circle, it is not yet 24-hour sun because it is now 3 weeks past the summer solstice.  We've left the North Atlantic and are in the GIN Sea.  (Greenland - Iceland - Norway). 

July 13, 2000,  9AM; N67º26', E12º 96’.

We are approaching Røst Is. in a dense fog.    The temperature is 48º.  Chief Officer Frank Donath and First Officer Telmo Sacedo are navigating by radar.

At anchor, we board Zodiacs in a dense fog.  We are in David Cothran's Zodiac.  He's taken a radar reflector so the Cal Star's radar can track us if we get disoriented in the fog.  Steve MacLean motors his Zodiac over to ask if I'd brought along my GPS.  (A private joke from our Antarctic expedition.) He has his out.  David, however, is confident of his navigation.  He takes some plankton samples with a net that we are later able to view through the video microscope back aboard.  Tom Ritchie's Zodiac finds a square jellyfish and asks us over to identify it.  We see Cormorants (Shags), Puffins, an eagle, various Gulls, Guillemots and Gannets.  We're glad to have worn our waterproof overpants as we take spray and the Zodiac is pretty wet.

By 2 PM we are gliding into the protected harbor of Reine Village where cod fishing and whaling are the local staples.  The boats here are unique in form and construction, suggesting a local design.  They are double enders, of wooden lapstrake construction, finished in a honey blond color and topped by fiberglass or iron decks and cabins.  Most feature a mizzen stabilizing sail.  Some of the larger boats have a tripod in the bow that mounts a harpoon to take the Mincke Whale; which, though deplored, is legal. 

I guess wooden hull construction is OK in these cold-water latitudes.  Wood is no longer used in tropical waters.  There, if anything, it would be the other way around with wood used above the waterline only.  Mostly wood is used for decorative trim only in less frigid waters.

We landed at a floating dock and walked about the little village.  Bought a souvenir painted stone illustrating a puffin at a crafts shop.  50 Kr., (about $6).  Neil Folsom gave us a harbor tour by Zodiac on the return trip.

After dinner we entered Trollfjord, a narrow, scenic fjord that we traveled to its end.  The captain carefully put our bow nearly against the cliff side as Tove Peterson leaned as far out as she could and plucked a bit of vegetation growing out from the stone cliffs.  Tove then begged permission to jump from the ship at the edge of the cliff as a photo-op.  After some negotiation, the captain gave his permission and Tove ran off to put her bikini on beneath her jeans.  We closed with the cliff a second time.  This time I was at the bow and held one of her ankles as she leaned far out to snatch another branch to the great delight of the assembled passengers and staff.  It was an impressive demonstration of ship handling to move our 294 ft. vessel’s bow within a meter of the cliff wall.

Tove then stripped to her bikini, surprising everyone and almost before I could get the camera ready, leaped into the frigid waters.  Another videographer was better positioned and captured the dive well.  When she was recovered aboard the chase Zodiac, his video also captured Tove, back aboard, singing the Swedish drinking song (rapidly) before downing a healthy shot of aquavit.  The video was later shown in the lounge to great applause.  We were sure this would make the website, but it did not.  That's Tove, to the right swimming in the frigid fjord toward her pick-up Zodiac.

Our cameras captured a small cabin cruiser defacing the cliff wall with spray can graffiti and everyone booed and gave the thumbs down sign of disapproval, but we were ignored.

July 14, 2000, 0900;  N69º 35', E18º 51'. 

Approaching the bridge at Tromsø.  The temperature is 53º in a light drizzle.  We're stalling because our line handlers, ashore, won't be available to help dock the ship until 0930.  We will be dockside all day with tours in the morning.

Quoting Tom Ritchie's daily briefing paper, Tromsø is the administrative center for Northern Norway.  It boasts a population of 65,000 people and has an ice-free harbor year round, presumably owing to the Gulf Stream.  Archaeological excavations indicate that the site has been inhabited for some 9000 years.  There is a university here.  It is hard to appreciate that we are far above the Arctic Circle.

A morning tour showed us the Arctic Cathedral, a postmodern construct that is regarded by some as a symbol of the town.  (The guide, for example, had its image as his company’s logo.)  I thought it rather poorly built and maintained.  The paint was peeling  and the concrete both cracked and unevenly finished.  The Polar Museum was very well done with extensive displays relating to the polar exploration in the first third of the last century.  Lindblad had a trio following us about, playing Mozart.

In the afternoon, the weather cleared and it turned warm.  We walked into town to buy a chart of Svalbard to replace those we'd forgotten to bring.  Also walked to the new Polarium (shaped like a bunch of collapsed dominoes) containing a cinerama-like video presentation about Svalbard and an aquarium devoted to arctic sea life.

It is high summer in Tromsø and the locals are enjoying it to the fullest.  The temperature is as high as 70 degrees and people are sitting in outdoor cafes, walking about in shorts and tee shirts.  The heavy knit Norwegian sweaters being hawked at shipside kiosks seem strangely out of place.

Paul tried to check e-mail at an internet cafe, but they had only one terminal and it was occupied.  The library had two terminals, also occupied, but a considerate gentleman allowed me to use his for a brief check of the mail.  There was a short note from Paul's sister, Sylvia, to the effect that she had been following the trip on the web but that the day's narratives were posted late and “seemed to be canned."  I mentioned that to Steve MacLean (who'd written one of the dispatches from Geiranger Fjord) and he allowed as they were sending them at the end of each day, that since the ship's time was ahead of New York time, they had time to post them properly.  He concluded that the delay must be at HQ.  As to the "canned" sound of the reports, he simply shrugged.  A different naturalist writes each  dispatch and each has his own style.

Although we were supposed to leave at 1800, the ship's Ice Master, Capt. Leif Skog, was delayed in reaching the airport here in Tromsø and the ship is waiting for him.  He is required (by law, according to Tom Ritchie) for the ship to navigate in polar ice.  Leif Skog had been the Ice Master and captain for our Antarctic expedition 18 months ago and had also commanded Polaris when we went to Baja.  When he came aboard, Leif recognized Rosemarie and gave her a big kiss.  He's exhausted by 36 hours of flying from Seattle.  Most of his time was spent either in the Chicago or London airports.

We left Tromsø directly and headed out a spectacular fjord with mountains and glaciers on both sides.  Around 10 PM we crossed 70ºN, about 240 miles north of the Arctic Circle and headed for Fugloya Island.  Tom announced we'd put a bunch of Zodiacs in the water for close up looks at the seabird breeding colonies.  The sun is still quite high and the weather is sunny and bright.  Fugloya island, a rock really, is at N70º 16’,  E20º 08’.

The birding was quite fine.  We saw numerous Gulls, Gannets, and Kittiwakes. The grassy ledges in the cliffs support a large colony of Puffin.  Hawks circled overhead, three or four at a time.  Some of the puffins were so full of fish that they were unable to take off as our rubber Zodiac approached.

By midnight, with the sun still high and bright we departed to the northwest (course: 320º) at 14 kts into the open Arctic Ocean.

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