Tag: cruise

Cruise last, cruise next ?

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November 8, 2024

8:44 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’m on leave again ! Not sure if I mentioned it (probably did but memory is goldfish) but I’m disappearing out of the world again for a little while. I’ll hopefully be able to post while I’m out there but I did think I should probably finish up posting what happened on the last cruise before the next one starts.

Picture. We're looking at a little red dragon figure sitting in a Norwegian Viking style longboat. There are 5 shields on the side of the boat with Norway flags, the red and white striped sail is full and there is a Norway flag at the top of the mast.

This next one came about from a fairly random asking of the Google for “cruise November 2024”. I’ll post more about that later. Gotta wrap up the last one first ! I left it last time with the visit to Rødøya Island on the middle Monday, after a magical trip to the top of Norway where we saw the huskies and got the selfies with the aurora. If you click on the “travel” label then that will be the easiest way of taking you to the Northern Lights cruise posts.

Tuesday saw us visiting the little coastal community of Bessaker, we might have tripled the population for the day. Charming place, absolutely lovely people, very tasty noms there, coziness and a very friendly representative of the natives :

Picture. We're looking downwards at a road. A large dark curly haired poodle is looking back at us from down the road. There are three people there, two in the red Hurtigruten coats, one in normal cold gear.

They also have a wall of trolls there. I didn’t manage to bring back any goodies though because I’d been forgetting to put my wallet in my coat (oops). They have a big staircase up to a view point as well here which I have to admit to chickening out on because my back started turning even more to glass around this kind of time. (Spoiler, it’s still glass)

Next up on the Wednesday was Loen, which has a cable car lift up to the top of the mountain. We were being menaced by multiple storm systems in the North Sea and North Atlantic around this time, so the weather wasn’t great …

Picture. We're looking at a fog bound scene. To the left is the fences for the mountain top facility. There is a cleared path on the left and a snow covered side of the mountain to the right. We can just about make out an orange wind sock in the centre.

Yep. We in the clouds.

There was also a bit of excitement caused by a power failure, so we were a little delayed going up the mountain. However, there was consolation in a hot chocolate and a delicious cookie in the shop at the top of the mountain with a lovely lady behind the counter with a charming sidekick.

Picture. We're looking down at the bits and bobs on a shop counter. On top of a black box, we can see a black rubber vampire duck with bat wings and fangs

Best shop mascot ever.

Thursday saw us sheltering from the storms in Hardangerfjord, with a quiet chilled out day that included the expedition team taking us for a rigid inflatable boat ride up and down the fjord. I didn’t get many pictures to share but it was going being out and about there. There is one picture that I’ll save to close out the post on.

The Friday was a trip to Stavanger, which became the oil capital of Norway. The geology of the North Sea meant that Norway got a big prize in terms of being able to control the oil reserves off the coast and Stavanger was the city that sprung up to feed the exploitation industry. The petroleum museum is well worth a visit, although I do regret being a bit too low on batteries that day to seek out the more tourist areas.

Picture. We're looking at a building by the dockside to the left. The building has a magnificent mural painted on it. On the right, an astronaut holding painted letters spelling out "Stavanger Houston".

The Saturday was a sea day as we made our way back across the North Sea to England, with us arriving back in Tilbury a day later than scheduled on the Sunday. It was an incredible trip, a good one to have as my first cruise holiday. It’ll be interesting to see what the contrast is for the next cruise. The ship I’ll be on is more a purpose built cruise holiday ship that’s more than 3 times the size of MS Maud (now back in service after the incident in Dec 2024 and renamed back to Midnatsol).

We were really well looked after on Maud. A small cruise ship but very cozy, relaxed and it was a fantastic holiday. I’d thoroughly recommend the cruising. On a normal hotel holiday, you’re based around the same place and explore under your own power. On a cruise holiday, there will be stuff to be enjoying on the ship and the ship will be moving from port to port (usually while you’re sleeping) giving you a new place to explore.

Picture. It's the morning before sun up. We're looking out from the ship towards the shore. On the left, the bulwarks of the ship and a Norway flag hanging down from a pole. In the distance, the town of Loen in the gap between hills to the left and right. It's a very cloudy sky.

This was the port entry to Loen on the Wednesday morning. The Loen visit was another where the tender boats were required to get us to shore. This was a very well practiced, well grooved and above all safe exercise for guests not particularly used to being at sea.

Last one for this series before signing off :

Picture. We're looking out from the windows of the ship towards the V of the Hardangerfjord closing towards a bridge at the end. To the left are hills, with more terrain at the end. We can see 3 boats full with people with red jackets. The boats are moving away from us, down the fjord.

There we go. It was a great experience, actually economical and affordable too and I’d thoroughly recommend looking at cruises as a way to experience something different. You are a bit at the mercy of the weather. 15 minutes later, the fog had come in and you couldn’t see the terrain at the end of the fjord there.

See you all next time, hopefully it won’t take me nearly a year to finish off the next series !

Island excursions

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December 12, 2023

10:36 pm

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Hello everyone,

Apologies, been quiet for a while … I managed to pick up bugs that affected me all last week and instead of knocking the bad vibes post off quickly (last post was a grumble and not great vibes), it’s taken a bit of time to summon the finger tapping. Back to cruise stuff !

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a sandy beach, in shadow. The calm sea is to the left, in the background is rock with a square mountain top in the background. The mountain is half in shadow, half lit orange by the morning sun. On the beach, we see a boat coming to shore with a small number of people on board. More people in red jackets are off on the high part of the beach to the right.

The middle Monday of the cruise saw us heading off to explore Rødøya island, as we headed back down south again. (Rødøya is going to be a stretch for the old copy/paste so I’m going to call it Red Island from now on !)

Red Island is one of the landmarks going up the Norwegian coast. We went from the ship to the shore in the Zodiac boats as there is no dock or jetty here :

Picture. Photograph. We're on a boat, looking backwards. The black plastic of the engine is lower middle and there is a square metal frame with rounded corners above. Within the frame, we see our ship. The lower part is black, with "Hurtigruten Expeditions" in writing at the back (left). There is a red band and the upper part with portholes and windows is in white. We can see a black funnel and assorted radio antennae on top of the ship.

There’s our ship, MS Maud, resting at anchor while we were off having a wander around the island. We got ashore in the small Zodiac boats and I was really impressed with the systems in place to get the guests transferred ashore. In the picture, you’ll see some platforms coming out from the middle of the ship at the waterline. These are tender pits. The boats are driven up alongside the tender pits and you literally step straight from ship to boat, with very little hassle or difficulty.

It’s a system that seems extremely well practiced, it’s secure and safe, with assistance from the crew all the way. Very impressive, especially when you consider that the average age going on the boats is 60+, probably 65+ and I’d include myself in the groups that have some mobility issues. (Getting older)

When we got to shore, it was a similar operation :

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at one of the Zodiac boats. It has black rubber sides and a grey plinth and coxswain at the back with a 12 on it. The metal frame is at the back to the left, the front of the boat is to the right with netting. 7 people in red jackets are on board. 1 is being assisted off the boat by one of two ladies wearing yellow and black waterproof outfits.

Yep, steps ! We went from ship to boat by stepping over the side of the boat, for shore side we went over the bow. The two ladies in yellow and black you see there are Maeva and Holly of the Expeditions team, who were absolute legends tirelessly pulling the boats in and making sure everyone got to the dry bit of the island.

While we were all off taking in the scenery, Holly and Maeva were non stop on the boats pulling them in and helping everyone off. We had some amazing people looking after us on the cruise and these two were brilliant throughout.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a small snow covered hill, in shadow. The mountain is to the left, half lit by morning sun. Standing above us in traditional tunic is the blond haired Magnus, mid exultation of his latest story about trolls.
Norwegian man tells stories

That’s Magnus, telling us about the mountain. It’s actually one of the trolls, who was too busy arguing to see the sun come up … and now the troll is one of the navigation landmarks on the coast. Magnus was great, he’d tell us about the myths and legends and totally true stories about Norwegian history.

It’s a rich country for culture and they’ll surprise you. They’ve been a subject nation to one of Denmark, Sweden or Finland for so much of their history but now, with North Sea oil bolstering them, they’re fully independent. The country doesn’t actually need the oil for energy, they have ample hydroelectric power from the landscape. They’ve been very smart in turning the proceeds into a rainy day bank and it’s made sure they can stand on their own. And they’re also extremely humble with it too, they haven’t been changed by the oil wealth.

I’d thoroughly recommend visiting, it’s a lovely country and the people are very welcoming.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snow covered hillside that's about 10 feet away. There is a hollow in the rocks, with a small but cozy looking camp fire waiting to grow. Beside, looking proud of the fire, is Peter the Norwegian standing tall with an arm resting on the rocks.
Norwegian man makes fire

And that’s Peter, who was really fun to listen to when he was telling us about his country. Very proud fellow, lovely guy, with a great humility. It was a pleasure to be around Peter, Magnus, Holly and Maeva and the others in the team, Geraldine the photographer, Fran the antarctic scientist, Emile the organiser and all of the others who were a bit more background but who made sure everything went incredibly smoothly.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over a rippled sea towards the rocks of the island. The sun can just be seen on the horizon, it's about to disappear below. There is a long ray of sun reflection on the sea.

After a little wander, it was time to head off again as the sun was setting. It was about this time in the cruise that we were starting to get warnings of very heavy weather coming through with multiple storm systems starting to gather together to have a fight where we were looking to pass through the North Sea on our way home.

(I can feel my shoulder getting a bit sore again so just Red Island today)

Red Island was a lovely little interlude on the trip, away from civilisation. I had big feelings of trepidation about going on the boat transfer but a big part of me was going “You will not get the opportunity to do this again for a long time, DO IT” and that part won. Just like booking the cruise in the first place, I’m very glad I let that part of me win over the overcautious side that likes to hide away a bit too much.

This was also when we came back across the Arctic Circle, pretty much exactly at sunset.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking through one of the ship windows to a slightly choppy sea with islands in the background. The sun is all but disappeared over the horizon to the left. There are a few wisps of cloud in the sky above. To the right is another ship, with lights blazing away.

There was a bit of a race to get there, with a German cruise ship steaming across a bit faster than us. Bit too much of a hurry, needs to chill out and enjoy the milkshakes some more :-D. We got to the landmark just as the sun was fully going down.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a small island in the sea with a plinth and a metal frame globe on top. The globe is lit from below and by the ship with white lights. In the background, the rocky outcropping of islands and above that, a red glow of a sunset.

Not a great picture but the best of the series. That’s the monument which marks the boundary of the Arctic Circle. We didn’t see it on the way up (passed in the night I think) but it was good to see it at dusk with the fading light.

And that’s where we’ll leave Norway for this post.

I mentioned bugs … I also fell up the stairs (oops). The bugs weren’t too serious but I stayed working from home with sniffles on Monday and by Tuesday, didn’t have much of a voice available. But they’re mostly gone now, pretty much all better. I’m feeling the aftermath of tripping up the stairs though. I basically missed the last step and almost faceplanted myself on the landing. Oh well.

I’ve been feeling the damage in my wrists and shoulder. They basically took the brunt of me going thud at the top of the stairs. Didn’t feel it much at the time (was about to sleep half the weekend to get rid of the bugs) but the wrist is a bit sore now. But it still works so I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.

Time to hit post, listen to Tashnarr learning guitar Rocksmith (linky) and head back into the latest book. It’s The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher, not too sure what to make of it so far but T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) does write lovely, very readable books that steadily draw you in with the characters, style and steadily unfolding story.

Laters 😀

Cruising car

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November 30, 2023

10:57 pm

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Hello everyone,

I kinda got out of the habit with the blogging since I got back on shore ! Don’t worry, the cruise posts will start up again next time, I just need to talk about some after cruise stuff … and maybe get back to a little cruisey summary too for some good vibes at the end.

Picture. We're looking at a cute little green dragon, curled up asleep with head resting on their front paws.

This is skipping ahead a little bit with cruise stuff but the not too spoilery summary is : storms happened ! They were looking pretty serious, so our return was delayed a day with that day being spent sheltering in a fjord. More on that in a future post. But it did mean that instead of me returning on Saturday and having a sleep day on the Sunday, we got back on Sunday and then I was up the road again for a car service on Monday before restarting work on Tuesday.

I’ll be either for a bit of quiet over the coming weekend.

The car service is drawing a bit of a rant actually … It could well be Strike 3 for the Lexus organisation. They make wonderful cars but I’ve had them delivered with pre-delivery defects that in two cases, should have been picked up in the 150 point pre delivery quality and safety inspections they talk about for the used cars.

The least bad one was the IS with the battery terminal that popped off leaving me with a dead car incident. I think this would have happened as a consequence of the cars probably being shipped (by ship) with the batteries disconnected … and then all the predelivery configuration gets done and the battery’s connected. It was just bad luck that it wasn’t tightened up enough, but also careless.

The serious one was my last car, I think it was shipped with a fault in the back suspension which led to massive understeer and excessive body roll. This would have been picked up in a test drive and it would have been a factory defect. It also wasn’t picked up in two services.

And I got a £700 service bill for my latest car. The extra cost was for wheel alignment and a new tyre because the old one had excessive wear due to the poor wheel alignment. Red’s a 68 plate car, which means it was registered in the second half of 2018. When a UK car is 3 years old, it has to start having annual road worthiness checks, which is how stuff like bald tyres and faulty wheel alignment get discovered.

So when it comes to having a car delivered 3 months after one of these checks, with faults like that … you could call me rather ticked off about it. I don’t think it was anything I’d done post delivery, I can’t remember whacking anything. (Although I had another bout of covid not long after getting the car) Especially as it had the wobble vibration kicking in between 35 and 50mph which is indicative of either alignment or balancing. (Or a faulty wheel bearing)

Yeah, I’m decidedly unhappy about it. But it’s not something to immediately change the car about, like what it was with the Blue car with suspected suspension fault and the Silver one which had a power steering fault which was also skipped over in a service. My impression of both those was pretty much “Ok, you’re not finding and discovering these obvious faults, so I’m not going to tell you about them as part of the negotiations for me changing to the next car.”

This might be giving a bad impression of the brand though … The 6 Lexii I’ve had so far have been fantastic cars. Their drive by wire behaviour fits exactly the behaviour I want from the cars I drive. I like to be able to settle into a chilled out essentially autopilot for cruising, with the option of going very quick when I need to. The CT200h (aka Posh Prius) is on the low side for power for me (10 sec to 60, 134bhp system power) but when you ask it to, it cheerfully gives you everything it’s got. And what it had was far more effective at getting down the road quickly than the performance Focus ST170 I had before.

The toys are great too. I’d like to keep going with the brand, except they’ve caught the marketing urge to move everyone into SUVs … which is not something that I can support. They get a lot of things right though, with no design stupidity like you’d get with Ford or dodgy electronics which you’d have with the French cars. Or cars which just disintegrate like certain other EU cars, cars which have special modes to cheat emissions and economy figures, or cars which are excessively difficult to repair by design.

Toyota (and Lexus) make excellent cars. Maybe it’s a Corolla next.

Book stuff ! I read two books while off on the holiday :

Erebus by Michael Palin. It’s tagline is that it’s the story of a ship. Essentially, two ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. They were special Napoleonic War ships, with the war ending before they could actually do their purpose. So after being mothballed for a while, visionary people saw their potential as extreme exploration ships with them being dispatched to the Antarctic and later the Northwest Passage. This book is the story of the ships and what we know of their expeditions. It’s well worth a peek as a look into life on the ships and the discoveries that were made when so much of the map was Terra Incognita with “Here Be Dragons” labels on it.

It was a bit of a slow one though, perhaps a bit too much in there and it felt like a bit of a slog. Still worth checking out though.

Next up was Winter World by A G Riddle. This one’s set in a near future Earth, which is becoming steadily colder. It’s like an Ice Age is coming but it’s not from planetary conditions, it’s ALIENS blocking out the sun. Good book too and it sets up a trilogy. I’ll be looking forward to reading the next two in a while when the book 2 is on offer. (Bought book 3 in a 99p offer)

Ref the cruise though, there will be more posts with pictures to come there but the quick summary is :

It was a Hurtigruten Expeditions cruise on MS Maud. She’s a small cruise ship accommodating around 300 guests. Cozy. The crew were amazing, making it a lovely experience from start to finish. The expeditions team were fun, super motivated, friendly people with an infectious spirit that got us massively looking forwards to what was coming up to see. And Norway supremely delivered on that promise of good things to see.

I’d thoroughly recommend them, when I do more cruising (and that’s a definite), I’ll be looking at Hurtigruten again. You see cruise ship and you think Party Boat. It was a fun atmosphere but it was much more about the getting out there and seeing great things than a dress up for dinner party ship. Just what I wanted and what I didn’t realise I needed.

Economical too, I was able to book less than 5 days before the sailing date with a nice little discount and … there is no solo traveller supplement like pretty much everything else applies to the cost of going away. The atmosphere on board totally supported solo travelling as well. You’d be placed with other people in the main restaurant for food but the guests were lovely too and meal conversations were very pleasant. I could have picked up a collection of great new friends on the trip. (I hope some of you remember me and are reading this – you’re amazing and made the trip much better !)

Disclosure note time – I paid fully for the cruise, the only freebies were what every traveller with them gets : free coffee, cookies, wifi, food, selected expedition things. There was absolutely no nickel and dime behaviour here (like you might remember me complaining about with Novotel)

It was a very rewarding, informative, pleasant, educational (camera, science, people) trip. And it was the getting away from the world that I desperately needed, even though I didn’t know ho much I needed it.

Last message ? Sometimes we need to get away from the world for a little while and do something different. The world can get you down. I hope you all get that chance to escape from it for a little while. I was having lots of fun out there and I hope the posts here about the trip and the pictures I was sending around the various parts of the internet brought out smiles.

Land ? Huskies Ahoy, Lights Ahoy

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November 26, 2023

1:16 pm

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Hello everyone,

Last post from on board ship today. It’s a case of LAND AHOY on each side of the ship as we start making our way up the Thames. But that’s something for a later post. It’s been a wonderful cruise, talking to the other guests has been lovely and we’ve been incredibly well looked after by the crew. I’ll definitely be doing another cruise holiday at some point when I can see how to fit it in and it’s almost certain to be with Hurtigruten again.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snowy scene, with a lady and a dog standing on a platform. The dog is a white furry Husky coming up to between her knees and hips. Husky is looking over to the right, surveying all. The lady is reaching down to give Husky a bit of stroking.

Saturday saw us heading into Tromsø, which is a larger Norwegian city set on an island in the fjord, with additional settlement spreading into the mainland on either side. We had a little look around the city itself with a little bit of scouting in the local souvenir shops. But it was a little limited for me because ….

HUSKIES

Yep. I didn’t sign up for many of the additional trips but I didn’t want to miss the visit to the Huskies. And it was a magical couple of days too. The Huskies were just one evening, we’ll get back to Sunday later. We visited a farm where they breed and train up the dogs, taking the best ones into the racing team and looking after the rest of them. Whether that’s using them as sled dogs or looking after them until they can be adopted by loving homes.

And they’re lovely dogs too.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a man standing up, holding a dog in his arms. There are more people in the background, everyone is wrapped up warm with coats and woolly hats. The dog is looking directly towards us, with a curious white and grey face as he's enjoying a view from higher up than usual.

That’s one of the puppies. Very curious, very bouncy, totally acclimatised to the conditions. Ready for running across the snow, very happy to have all of the attention they can get.

Picture. Photograph. The foreground is lit, showing a snow covered field extending into darker fields in the background. We see a wooden snow topped dog kennel in the lower right with the names Fjord and Katla. In the background, a series of sleds with dogs harnessed eager to run.

And there they are, ready to run. And run fast. No rides for us because the snow isn’t old enough yet to support guest safety but it was a definite case of feeling the excitement in the air as the dogs were getting ready to do what they were born and bred for.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a wood fire in the centre of 4 posts. In the background, is a table with cups and a kettle. Everything is lit by a faint purple.

And then we disappear back inside a hut and enjoy a warm fire, a bit of cake and some hot chocolate. Best trip of the cruise. And I have a few more pictures too, including a couple that went to Geraldine, expedition photographer. We’ll be getting all of her stunning photographs later (I’m in some !) and I’ll be sure to drop the link when we get it.

And then there was Sunday. The morning was in Narvik and one thing about this trip has been educational about Second World War history. Terrible things happened all of the world, Norway definitely wasn’t spared. We don’t hear enough about it … The northern parts of Norway above Narvik were essentially Scorched Earthed as the Germans made their way out and that’s just one of the terrible things. It’s well worth educating about it, more than I’d want to go into here. And it does make you ask the question : we seemed to be winning the Battles of Narvik and pushing out the Germans. And then we abandoned the town to try and protect France. What would have changed if we’d held that northern flank of Norway ? That’s a definite one for the alternate historians.

Yep. Check out the Norwegian side of the WW2 story, it’ll be illuminating.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over a faintly lit ship deck, with the railing on the right and chairs stacked in front. In the sky, there are a couple of dark clouds but behind them, a band of green glow in the sky going from centre bottom to up and left.

And then there was the continuing transit south … With a break in the overhead conditions too ! I have to admit, the pictures are much better than I could see. The assembled Northern Light Hunters were limited to seeing a grey on the horizon as our eyes couldn’t make out the lights.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking across the deck of the ship towards the rail. Above the horizon, there is a patterning of dark clouds with a green aurora glow behind them. You can perhaps make out bands in the green. Oh and in the centre foreground, a grinning idiot in a bright yellow hat, a dark jacket and a blue and white scarf.

I’d mostly figured out how to get good pictures out of the Pixel 4 camera by this stage and then had a bright idea involving the camera timer … A guess at a good spot, a tap of the timer, a gentle saunter across to the rail and there we go.

This was about the last chance we got (except maybe last night, faintly) to see the Northern Lights, the remaining nights saw the clouds coming in a bit too much. It was an amazing sight to see though, definitely a Bucket List thing if you do those.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking across to the ships rail again. Clouds are on the horizon but above, we see the green bands of aurora stretching across and upwards. Quite pretty. Oh and there's the grinning idiot in yellow hat, dark jacket and white and blue scarf over in the bottom right.

There we go. Last one for now, this was just after midnight on the same day. It’s the Pixel 4 camera again on a tripod, with me gently sauntering over to the rail to do the timer selfie. This was the best spot on board for these, there wasn’t enough incidental light on the flight deck to pick up the grinning idiot.

I should probably hit post now and start to pay more attention, docking soon !

I’ll do more steady catching up later. Tilbury Docks are very nearly in sight …

Orcas and Alta

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November 21, 2023

1:47 pm

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Hello everyone,

We spent Friday last week at the top of the world. Well, nearly 😀 The northernmost point of this cruise is Alta, at 69 degrees 58 minutes North. It’s quite far North. Sadly not much in the way of Northern Lights for most of us (too cloudy) but the group that went out and about did catch some good lights. There will be more about that in a later post …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a dark metal deck. In the foreground are two balls of snow, forming a tiny snow person. Behind, we see a group of people around a growing mound of snow.

More about that little one later. Actually, let’s rewind a bit further and give another special mention to photographer Geraldine, who is part of the expedition crew. I mentioned Orcas earlier, let’s see if this Facebook Post Linky works … Hopefully that’ll take you to a page with pictures of whales on.

It was good seeing the pod of Orca swimming alongside us for a little while. I was able to catch sight of them but wasn’t anywhere near fast enough to get the camera up in time for a picture. However, there should be plenty behind that link. Plus the MS Maud page has more of the various pictures from this fortnight’s cruise. Go take a peek :-D.

Norway has waters that are warmed up by the same Gulf Stream that keeps Britain warm, so the Orca and other whales like to visit.

(Note – there’s a very sleepy vibe going on in the Explorer Lounge at the moment …)

So – Alta !

Picture. Photograph. We're looking up and over a snow covered walking bridge, lit regularly on each side. Behind that, is a sloping building made up of cylindrical floors of decreasing radius as we go upwards.

Alta grew into a city a few years ago, which also meant they needed a bigger church too. Cue the Northern Lights Cathedral of the picture. Good place, it also serves as a community centre as well.

The textured sides that you might be able to make out in that picture are actually titanium plates, which are slotted together to provide the shell of the building. They reflect the mood of the environment around the building. For our visit … that meant grey and cloudy :-D. Oh well, no Northern Lights for the town that day. But there are several microclimates around Alta, so the group that went out and about hunting for clear skies were given a treat.

However, we had a treat of a different kind … With the explorer group going for a building of an impromptu snow person. Norway doesn’t seem to go in for building snow people. Perhaps it’s because the trolls don’t like the snow people and bop them all on the head while everyone is sleeping. It’s another curious difference between Norway and the UK.

Picture. Photograph. A group of very happily smiling people are gathered around a tall and thin mound of snow, steadily resembling a snow person. A lady with long blond hair carries a snow ball about twice as large as her hands, she's about to place the ball on top of the mound.

There we go. Almost complete. I’ve been staying quite wary of my back and legs, so I was just doing the spectating thing and taking pictures. (it’s a bit cold, I’ve been needing to defrost a lot and conditions were treacherous)

Picture. Photograph. A cheery snow person looks as us in front of a gathering of 9 assorted people standing and kneeling behind. The lights of the harbour can be seen behind them.

And there we go ! The members of the expedition crew (not searching for Northern Lights) proudly presenting their new snow person. I think it might be still there too (this was from Fri 17th) and also gained a friend.

As I type though, I’m really struggling to stay awake 😀 (It’s a very quiet, chill, sleepy vibe up here in the Explorer lounge) So it’s time for me to retreat to the cabin after taking just one more picture of a lovely sunset.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a fairly calm sea towards a horizon with low hills and islands. The sky is clear blue with a milky haze at the horizon. To the middle right, we see the sun about touching the horizon, with a reflection on the water.

(I’m cheating this was Monday 20th). Later everyone, have a wonderful rest of the day.

Svolvaer and the Trolls

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November 18, 2023

7:10 pm

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Hello everyone,

This could be another race post today, there’s a tomorrow’s activities thing starting in 50 minutes from this point in the post :-D.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out to the sea in the harbour, over a small fence with 3 notices on. Beyond and above the fence is our ship docked up, black below with a small red band before a mix of white hull and glass above. It is day time but quite cloudy.

We spent Thursday morning in Svolvaer, which is one of the traditional fishing towns on the coast of Norway. There isn’t so much fishing now due to the quota system, which is aimed at maintaining the fish stocks. Not too much fish caught, to balance the rate at which the fish can replenish their numbers.

We had a good little wander around the town, with 3 talks on the cod fishing ways, the fishing industry and the evolution of the nature of the local population. It’s been very interesting listening and learning about this part of the world. And I can never resist a little tall tale as well.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a mirrored surface on top of a hill. It is oval, longer vertical than horizontal. There is a circle cut out of the middle. Several figures in red jackets and yellow hoods are standing around on snowy ground. There are trees behind the oval mirror.

That was an interesting and curious little art feature on top of the little hill by the church. Or was it a coastal defence, designed to keep the fisher people from the South of Europe away ? Because Norway isn’t part of the EU, they can set their own rules for fishing limits, which means the fishing people from Portugal and Spain are banned. But if they get too close …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snow covered side of the dock, looking out over rippled seas. In the distance, we see more land with an array of triangular structures on which the cod is placed. In the foreground, 2 solitary boot prints in the snow.

Boom. Not even boots remaining. In the distance there are the racks on which the cod is put to dry out after being caught, a process which takes months. But it leads to preserved cod which will last for years.

We arrived to quite closed in cloudy conditions but things cleared a bit later to reveal some spectacular hills behind the town.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over the harbour. The main dock side is to our left, with buildings further to the left. A small pier stretches out from the right. Several small boats are docked up. In the distance, triangular peaks reach upwards to the sky. Thin grey clouds can be seen above the peaks.

Very pretty.

But also time to move on further up the coast and along the way ….

Picture. Photograph. We're looking towards a narrow entrance between two triangular sections of rock coming down to the flat calm sea surface. It's very dark, the rocks are very dimly lit.
Spooky

This is the entry to the Trollfjord, which we reached at just after 7pm. Very spooky, very dark, with the ships lights illuminating the sides of the fjord which were perhaps within 5 metres of the ship on each side. Lovely sight.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking down the side of the ship, with the ice covered rail on the right hand side of the picture. The sea is absolutely flat calm, mirroring the rocks reaching up to the left. They are a mix of white and grey. A search light is illuminating the rocks up towards the front of the ship.

Very tight confines in there. We were able to get in there, turn around and come out again by virtue of the Azipod system the ship has. Instead of propellers on shafts, an Azipod is a propeller that can turn through 360 degrees. It allows the ship to turn in place, which let us get into and out of the fjord.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at the end of the fjord, with faintly rippled water reflecting the dim shapes of rocks ahead of us. There are lights on the shore to the left and right.

A very beautiful little corner of Norway that we were quite lucky to be able to visit. Oh ! There was also …

Picture. Photograph. We're inside the ship, looking at a low table and a couple of chairs, with a window behind. Outside the window is the harbour side and its lights. On the table is a cup of black coffee and an inviting vanilla cake.
CAKE

Cake was good. Have a great weekend everyone.

A Dwagon in Bergen

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November 15, 2023

5:02 pm

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Hello everyone,

Last post was a bit quick … I didn’t have long before disappearing off for another of the excellent and informative lectures that we’ve been having throughout the cruise so far. We’ve been hearing about the history of Norway, the culture and the places we’re heading in to visit.

Picture. Photograph. We've looking from the back of our ship, towards Bergen harbour, lit up by the houses and the pre-dawn light. The blue cross in a white cross on a red background Norwegian flag is flying, slack from lack of wind, from a pole to the left. We can see a couple of ships to the right and houses on the bottom of a hillside.

So yesterday, we headed off in to Bergen for the morning and most of the afternoon. That’s Bergen in the picture above, with us sharing the port with a series of research vessels and offshore supply vessels.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking downwards on Bergen harbour. The sea is very calm, disturbed only by the herringbone ripples and wake of a small departing boat. We can see a series of ships alongside the land pointing out to the sea.

You’ll have to forgive me getting a bit spotterish about the ships. In the picture above, Maud has her portside (with the doors) alongside the dock, with her pointing outwards. The 5 vessels on the dock to the left are all offshore supply vessels. I think the yellow is for Viking, the blue and white is for Maersk and I didn’t catch the other ones. They all have the really tall wheelhouse where all of the power and crew areas will be. The deck behind is open and flat (for containers) and they’ll usually have a massive crane on board as well.

That picture is from the top of the Fløibanen funicular, which took us to a viewpoint above Bergen. And a lovely bit of walking around a nature area.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a goat with a pair of short horns. The goat mostly has white fur, with some black patches towards their head. The goat is far more interested in the grass on the ground than in paying attention to us. The goat is surrounded by trees.

May include goats.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at the side of a hill, with scrub grass and thin trees to each side of a cliffside rock fall.

This is what happens when the trolls are going home drunk, fall off the top of the hill and are still there in the morning.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out across a lake. The lake is frozen but with a mirror surface reflecting trees on the other side. There are also thin trees and grass on our side, to bottom right. The sun is very bright to the top middle/right and we can see it reflecting off the lake.

The troll was guarding the way to the lake above. Unusually for Bergen, we have brilliant sunshine and clear skies all day. Possibly the only day in the year that’ll happen. A good respite after the bad conditions we had coming across the North Sea on Monday.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking down a hill, with a cobbled road in the centre, with hills above in the distance. Houses and shops are to the left and right.

And that’s one of Bergen’s streets, looking down the hill from the entrance to the lower funicular station. Lovely place. And the ladies in the cafe at the top were also happy, smiling and I suspect quite amused at all of us cruise people coming through. But in a chuckling with us way. The best way.

Bergen is also being a victim of climate change and is being affected by how the world and landscape are changing around us. That’s illustrated by the Brygge houses :

Picture. Photograph. We're looking across a cobbled pedestrian area towards a series of houses. The one in front is a light brown house labelled "Enhjorningen Sjøboden" with a couple of light grey doors. The doors and the lower right edge of the house are on a small lean.

The houses weren’t built that way, with the lean … they’ve moved over time, with active preservation and renovation efforts ongoing to hopefully keep them there despite the land moving underneath them.

Being on the harbour, they are of course somewhat of a tourist trap. But also filled with a mix of lovely little items plus more practical winter weather gear. Something nice to remember Bergen by. Like …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a little crafted longboat. The boat is about 5 inches long, sitting on a wooden top with the front end to the left and a little towards us. The boat has red and white sails in vertical strips with a Norwegian flag at the top of the mast.

I got a boat, on a boat. That was only £16 (I think, will check in a bit to see what the exchange rate adjusted amount is). And there were many more things like that, I was very curious about the varied little figures that could have been turned into a chess set. Actually, there’s another boat on the boat … a not-quite-Lego but you get the idea representation of the Hurtigruten ships. I am very tempted.

And I’ll leave you with a bit more temptation there …

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at yesterday's lunch. On a rectangular plate is chicken on a bed of vegetables, with chips to the right. A white milkshake sits behind that. It looks delicious.

That was lunch yesterday after 14,000 steps around Bergen. It was delicious and definitely filled a spot. If you’re feeling hungry looking at it, I am too :-D.

There’s been aurora sightings announced though so … (hits publish buttons)

Speedy Sleepy Cruise

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November 14, 2023

7:23 pm

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,

Hello everyone,

Am on a boat. Is a good boat :

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at the front end (bow) of a small cruise ship from the left (port) side. We're taking the picture from a tarmac covered area of dockside. The ship is tied up by ropes. The name "MAUD" is on the front. The ship is black at the bottom, with a red band, with the pointy end and upper decks being a mix of white structure and glass.

This is going to be a fast post because I’m needing to put my boots on again in about 25 minutes from this bit in the post to learn about more stuff, let’s see how far we can get !

The ship started off on a sunny day (calm before the storm) in Tilbury Docks on the Thames to the East of London. It was a decent trip down there and I got to the ship in plenty of time. Embarkation was pretty smooth. If you can see a door in the side of the ship there, that’s where passengers get on. There’s another bigger door a bit further down where they restock the ship and bring the luggage on. It’s very efficient.

About MAUD … she takes about 250 of us passengers and we’re headed up the Norway coast now in search of the Northern Lights. I’m hoping to have a technique laid down to let me quickly get to the upper deck with a tripod to hopefully let me get some pictures for you. But I do have a bit more research to do there. (Plus hopefully clear skies to test with !)

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out of the ship to starboard (right), we can just see a bit of the ship to our left. We're looking out over a fairly calm sea, with the sun up in a blue sky dotted with a small selection of clouds. On the water, is a ship with an open deck and a wheelhouse at the back. The sun is reflecting off the water through the other ship.

That’s not Maud :-D. That was a tanker that was following us away. Maud is a very nicely set up little ship. Us passengers see up the ship starting from Deck 4, where we get on board. Deck 5 has the 3 restaurants, including one where I’ve been vastly enjoying the milkshakes.

We're looking at a milkshake in a tall glass, sitting on a glass topped table with a hatch pattern of wood beneath. The milkshake is mostly white, with dark chocolate bands going across and down. It has a pyramid top of cream.
Yep. Delicious

Deck 5 also has a lecture where we’ve been learning about Norway and a few preparations for what we’ll see, plus a few very welcome tips on how to get the best out of it and to capture it for later memories.

I have lots to learn about the photography but hopefully I’ll pick up the tips and absorb them in time to adopt them into a technique my body can handle. Like how to get really cunning angles for shots, involving getting down really low … with the challenging aspect of that being getting up again :-D. Good job I have a tripod now.

Deck 6 has guest accommodation, plus an outside area where we can walk around the entire ship. Deck 7 is all cabins. Deck 8 is where everyone can get together for presentations. Finally Deck 9 has another outside area where I’ll be taking more pictures from.

And we have a wonderful crew of the ship with a fun bunch of Expedition people who have been getting us up to speed with their specialist subjects. I’ve enjoyed (most*) of my time so far, looking forwards to hopefully seeing lights in the sky later, plus more great stuff along the way.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a really calm area of water bounded on left, far and right by the harbour dock side. A number of ships are lined up alongside each part of the dock. Low buildings can be seen in the distance, plus 2 dockside cranes, 2 building cranes and a small lighthouse to the left. The sky is mostly clouded.

That’s us coming into the small Scheveningen port for a technical stop before heading across the North Sea. It’s in the Netherlands, quite close to the Hague. Our ship can get in there by virtue of having a pair of Azipods and several bow thrusters. The Azipods are clever devices where the propeller isn’t on a long shaft, it’s in a module that sticks out under the ship and can fully rotate. It allows for incredible manoeuvrability and the ability for Maud to get in and out of places like this.

The “most*” above is for what came after Scheveningen … The UK has been hit by another Winter storm … and we got the edge of it. It got a bit wild out there … enough that the outside area was closed off and a lot of the passengers retreated to our cabins and bunks as we crossed the North Sea to the Norway coast.

But we got through that and Bergen was spectacularly lovely today. That’s for another post though, I gotta start getting those boots on again so I can hear about what’s happening tomorrow :-D.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at dark open sea in the lower half, with dense cloud above. There is just enough cloud opening in the centre for us to see a flat band of fire, with a couple of rectangular shapes of fire above and near the middle.

Time for one last one before I disappear. This was sunrise on Sunday morning. It was mostly cloud again but there were a few gaps which allowed for spectacular shapes like the Ship On Fire above.

Later everyone ! Have a great week, I’ll be back at some point with more pictures. One last thing, if you’re thinking you need to disappear from the world for a while, I’ve only been on the Hurtigruten ship for 4 days now and I would HEAVILY recommend them.

Technical Difficulties May Delay Cruise

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September 11, 2023

11:02 pm

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, , ,

Hello everyone,

It’s been a curious few weeks since I posted last time. (I do like that word, “curious”, it covers a lot of meanings.) I’m on leave for a week now, it’s been delayed a little bit by me doing Work Stuff but I’m in chill out mode at the moment.

Cartoon picture, credit to "Regan". We're looking at two dinosaurs sitting on a rock jutting out of a rising ocean, there is the top of a tree to the left. In the background, a ship with pairs of animals on board. The caption "Oh crap! Was that TODAY?"

Yep. Could have been on a cruise this week. The why not is because I’ve been dealing with another flare up with my outsides again. The pattern there seems to be about a week of slow healing followed by a day where it’ll suddenly reset back to the start of that again. I think it’s steadily improving but I’m not wanting to be too far away from the gunk I’m using to medicate it at the moment. Including an overnight away for work last week … It was threatening again on that.

How come it’s bad ? To be honest, not sure. I think I’m reacting to something I’ve been eating again but I can’t localise what it could be. Outside of maybe something garlic related. I know, weird thought. But I did get a reset this weekend after garlic butter infused bread with my dinner on Thursday and pizza garlic bread on Saturday. Need more data.

After living with this condition for over 10 years now, it’s something I have to keep a very close eye on. The psychologically damaging thought is “will it ever get better ?” And that thought does keep running through my mind. That’s partially answered by “It has got a lot better” because I can somewhat remember what it was like over 5 years ago when it was at its worst. I’m not going to go into too much details but one curiosity is that a large amount of my legs is smooth now, hairless. The hair didn’t come back.

Try not to think too deeply about that !

I do need to get myself out of the house for a decent amount of time though. I really need a good holiday I think, not just one spent being lazy in the house.

Picture. Meme. A cute little mostly white with black patches is sitting up on a tiny boat floating on calm water. The scene is just lit by the moon. The caption is "When you're just a cute dog on a boat, looking for a tennis ball"

There were a couple of cruise options I’ve been looking at. The main criteria are : not too far away, not hot, good places. I did enjoy the flying trips in and out of Norway and would like to see more. So … Option 1 :

Picture. We're looking at a map of the coast of Norway. There is a thin black line, joined with many red dots. It's the route of a cruise ship from Bergen in the South, to Kirkenes in the North.

That’s from Hurtigruten cruises (link) although I found that one from one of the cruise search sites. This looks like a very interesting cruise, especially in the shorter one way trip. Must research it a lot more to see if it could be made to work. The problem, is getting to or from Kirkenes in the North. You can fly there … from Oslo. So the travel around the cruise would be Gatwick to Bergen, then on the way back it would be Kirkenes to Oslo to Heathrow. I couldn’t see how I’d make that work. The there and back option would work a lot better.

Picture. We're looking at a map of Northern Europe. It's zoomed in a lot, showing just southern Norway and Sweden, Denmark, the top of Germany and a slice of the UK to the left. There's another route marked for the ship journey.

That’s another, much easier option going from Copenhagen to Molde Fjord and then back again with a side hop to Kiel in Germany. I think the flights worked out to going from Heathrow to Copenhagen, which makes it far easier for things like where do you leave the car. It’s a little awkward getting across from Gatwick to Heathrow, especially after being tired for travel. Better just to pile into the car and then use the remaining energy to cruise back down a hopefully quiet motorway.

Anyway, cruise didn’t happen this time because I was a bit too concerned about going away from home for an extended period where I wouldn’t be able to pop the medication to attack this ongoing skin condition.

Another option is a narrowboat cruise in the UK. This would be really valuable for informing the choices about the off in the future plan to get out of here and live on a boat. But I think I’d need to have a friend along for a narrowboat cruise for a) company and b) assistance with the locks and tying up the boat.

What’s these technical difficulties from the title ? I’ve had a look at another new game …

Picture. Meme. We're looking at an otter, swimming underwater. He's gripping a pair of water pipes quite tightly. The caption is "he needs those parts for his space ship, he's going to otter space"
It’s an older meme but it still checks out

The game I’ve been trying out is the brand new just released Starfield. I’ve been enjoying half watching a series of streams on it and it’s been intriguing up to what I’ve seen on it. I’d quite like to lose myself in it but … and this is a big but. It’s not unplayable when not installed on an SSD but the play experience definitely suffers to the point where I don’t want to open it again until I’ve migrated my system across to a bigger and better SSD.

Jargon buster – SSD is a Solid State Device storage thing. Whereas the older Hard Discs worked by having spinning discs with material that stored what was saved to them, Solid State Devices do that with electronic memory devices instead. Hard Discs take a lot of time to find what’s needed, SSDs just zap over to the data. They’re much faster in both finding stuff and retrieving stuff. But they were also subject to a massive premium on price, such that when Meltdown was built, it got a big for the time 500GB drive. I’ve now acquired a faster 2TB drive, I just need to install it.

The technical difficulties is definitely a TLDR. Basically, I have two suitable slots in my machine but one of them isn’t working. I think I know why … but available mental effort isn’t wanting to fix it that way. I’m having to ration that a bit at the moment. Anyway, instead of trying to make the dodgy slot work, I’m just going to acquire another slot. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, Starfield ?

Game screenshot. Starfield. We're looking at the side of a spaceship with all sorts of protrusions coming out of the sides. An orange planet is above us, half in shadow.
I did a space

It’s an intriguing game so far. It’s been heavily described as Skyrim in Space, which is a blessing and a curse. Skyrim was such a successful game with a go anywhere, do anything format. Translating that formula across to space makes for a very promising game from my point of view. Curse ? It looks like it’s inherited some of the user interface awkwardness from vanilla Skyrim. But … this is a Bethesda game, there are already mods out there to improve the user interface.

Game screenshot. Starfield. Our pilot is standing in front of a futuristic city. She's of medium skin tone, with faint blue hints in tied back hair. She's wearing a dark grey jumpsuit. In the background is a selection of people, standing around having a chat.
I did a ground

The thing I noticed a bit later there is the group of non player characters in the background. They’re all in different but lifelike poses. I walked past a different scripted conversation on my way out of the spaceport too. It’s a nice touch, whereas less technically complex games will quite happily do limited, unnatural poses, it looks like there’s more life in the background this time.

It’s a little thing but it’s tickled the geek in me.

Either way, I’m quite looking forward to going back into Starfield, hopefully I’ll be all up and running with the PC upgrade soon.

Time to sign off though – Hoping to enjoy a quiet week off work, it’s been a while coming. No sea cruise this time, I’ll keep that for later.