Our first scheduled port call at Stavanger was two days ago, but it was canceled due to high winds. That meant an extra sea day, and a chance to relax and watch the Norwegian coast slip by as we sailed north.
The Order of the Blue Nose
Yesterday was a scheduled sea day. The highlight was a 3 pm ceremony for bestowing “The Order of the Blue Nose.” It’s one of those seafaring traditions stretching back at least 100 years – an initiation for sailors crossing the Arctic Circle for the first time. I had heard that on Viking’s cruises up the coast of Norway, passengers are invited to immerse themselves in a jacuzzi filled with ice water as part of the ritual. It’s voluntary, of course, and I debated with myself as to whether or not I would do it. Finally I decided that I would do it in honor of my dad, my former father-in-law Al Friedrich, and the other sailors in my family.
Much to my disappointment (and, let’s face it, relief), when we arrived on the pool deck, we were told that Viking doesn’t do the ice water ritual in the winter. Too cold. Oh well. Instead, we partook in the other part of the initiation, which is downing a shot of Aquavit and having blue goo dabbed on your nose.
First sighting of the northern lights
Weather reports indicated that there was a slight chance of clear skies overnight. That coincided with forecast ionospheric conditions which might produce auroras. We laid out our cold weather gear before going to bed, in case we got a call that the northern lights were visible.
Our stateroom phone rang at midnight, saying that the crew had seen the northern lights. Most of the ship’s passengers rushed up to deck 8 and tried to see the lights. Unfortunately, if they were visible, it was an extremely weak display. I thought I saw them off to our east, but it may just have been sky glow from a distant city. People tired of the bitter cold temperature and howling winds and quickly went back to bed.
Jane and I eventually went back to our stateroom, too. I wasn’t able to go back to sleep. My iPhone buzzed with an alert from an aurora app that the northern lights were picking up again. I dressed and went back up on deck. Sure enough, parts of the sky were aglow to the north of the ship.
Being red-green colorblind, the color of the sky glow didn’t look different to me than that of the earlier distant town. There were also a few clouds overhead, and I couldn’t be sure that the patterns of light I saw in the sky weren’t caused by passing clouds. Jane assured me that this was most definitely green, compared to the yellow lights of the town.
I snapped some long exposure shots with my camera — which was hard to do with one gloved hand held over my head in the wind on board a moving ship — and I could clearly see that there were streamers and other structures that were definitely not clouds. What I thought was a line due to the edge of a cloud was the lower end of an auroral “curtain.” Nothing moved very fast, but you could tell that the appearance of the lights were subtly changed every time you looked down and looked back up again.
Only about 30 people were on deck this time, and those of us who braved the cold the second time were treated to a promising, albeit not spectacular, display. But cross it off the bucket list: I have seen the aurora borealis now.
Port call in Bodø
We docked in Bodø (pronounced Boo-duh) a little before 9 am and caught a shuttle to the Norwegian Air Museum.
I had not previously known about the importance of this town to aviation in World War II and during the Cold War. The Luftwaffe leveled the town in a massive air raid in September 1940 and set up an airfield here. In 1960, Bodø was Francis Gary Powers’ intended destination on the flight in which his U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over the USSR. And flyovers of NATO fighter planes in the morning and afternoon showed that it is still of strategic importance.
Jane and I were blown away by the quality of the museum and its displays. Visitors are encouraged to climb up on platforms to look into cockpits, and some planes are partially “stripped” so you can see their internal structure. Immersive exhibits help you imagine what it was like to be involved in the air war for Europe in WWII.
And of course it was wonderful to see some of my all-time favorite planes, such as the Spitfire and Mosquito.
There’s even a crashed JU-88 that looks much as it did when it was discovered after the war on a nearby mountainside.
Kjerringøy trading post
Our first “formal” shore excursion was to the Kjerringøy trading post about 50 km north of Bodø. We took a bus to a ferry, then across a small fjord, and then another 15 km north.
The scenery along the route was breathtaking – serene and majestic, sea and mountains and snow and ice, the landscape dotted by vacation cottages and small farms. I learned something along the way: a Norwegian “mile” is 10 km.
We saw reindeer along the route in both directions, and three moose as we were coming back just after sunset.
The trading post dates back to the late 1700s, and it is preserved as it looked at the end of the 19th century. A touching film told the story of the woman who owned and operated the settlement in most of the second half of the 1800s.
The house is furnished with the original materials, even the wallpaper that her husband brought her from Paris for their 25th wedding anniversary (the wallpaper was as expensive as a new fishing vessel would have been).
It was a great day in this charming town, one I was very glad we had the opportunity to visit.
