Hurtigruten; Tuesday, 05 February, 2013

In the end we finally docked in Tromsø a little before 12:30 and with a quick coach transfer the excellent concert started a short while after. With the time built in for overruns and with the lights in the coaches favour the whole way back from the Cathedral the boat finally departed Tromsø a bit after 1:45, only just 15 minutes late.

After a good night’s sleep and a late breakfast I was out on deck in time to watch the ship tread its way through the spectacular Risøyrenna channel, a 100 wide and just 7m deep dredged channel which enables the Hurtigruten to thread a path through the waters to serve the Vesterålen islands rather than taking the more inland route near Narvik and missing out both the Vesterålen and Lofoten’s

Then it was a short 90 minute cruise to Sortland, the capital of Vesterålen, where I had a brief wander around town before hopping back on board for lunch and the sail south to the founding home of the Hurtigruten – Stokmarknes

At Stokmarknes there was time to look around the Hurtigruten museum and the preserved D/S Finnmarken. When I visited several years ago, whilst travelling on the 1990’s built MS Nordlys, the Finnmarken did look incredibly dated and of another world. Compared to the MS Lofoten, it looks like she’s only just come out of service; it was quite striking the similarities (including a very similar deck layout) between the Finnmarken and my home for the last 9 days.

After Stokmarknes there was a demonstration out on the deck from the chef into how to properly prepare a salmon, including the opportunity to sample some different ways of marinating or serving the fish.

We then headed for the, supposedly, spectacular Raftsundet. Unfortunately the weather was closing in fast with the snow clouds almost enveloping the ship so it was difficult to see more than a few meters around the boat, though it was very obvious that the cliffs had come an awful lot closer!

Given there was nothing to see the captain obviously decided rather than cruising through the Raftsundet at a leisurely pace, allowing people to take in the views he went through at the maximum permitted speed and we arrived into Svolvær nearly 30 minutes early.

I had a long wander around the centre of Svolvær, but at 6pm on a very snowy Tuesday evening, apart from other Hurtigruten passengers, the town was deserted, so I eventually returned to the ship ready for dinner on departure.

After Svolvær we stopped at Stamsund for a short while, before heading out into the very choppy waters of the Vestfjorden for the overnight journey to Bodø.