At Sea - North Cape

Saturday 26^th May

Another good night’s sleep and I didn’t hear our arrival and departure from two ports, though Ann was complaining that the ship rolled a lot in the night.

After breakfast a short stop at Havoysund extended to nearly an hour while they unloaded about 50 pallets of paper, so we were 45 minutes late into Honningsvag on the island of Mageroya.  The population of 2800 was swelled by another 4000 today as a P & O and an America Holland liner were in port. Towards the end of the war, this town along with many others in the north of Norway were totally destroyed on the orders of Hitler, so there aren’t any old buildings on the island. 

Around this time of year the Sami people use Norwegian Army landing craft to land around 3,800 reindeer on the island but after a summer of grazing the adults and their calves swim the 1.8 km wide strait back to the mainland.  Before 1999 access to the island was by ferry but the 6.8 km undersea tunnel has provided a more convenient way of reaching the island.

After an early lunch, more like morning tea, we boarded the coach for the 33 km drive to the North Cape, stopping briefly at a Sami (replica) summer camp and along the road where many reindeer were grazing.  The North Cape plateau is still almost completely covered with snow and many of the lakes are still frozen but in 3 – 4 weeks the snow will have melted and the plateau will be covered in green.

In 1553 Richard Chancellor, a British sailor, searching for a northern passage to India, named it North Cape and the first “tourist” an Italian arrived here on foot in 1664 and until the road was built well after the war, tourist still arrived by boat and climbed the 1008 steps to top.  The cape rises 307 m. from the sea and is at 71 degrees 10 minutes north of the Equator, the most northerly point of Europe and there is nothing between it and the North Pole, 2080 km away.

On arrival we viewed a 20 minute film of the island and the cape through the four seasons, this was in the North Cape Hall which has multi levels and is built into the rock.  After the film we looked at several dioramas of various events in the history of the cape, including visits by members of Royal families, including the King of Siam, who presented many items for the Thai museum which are displayed in the building.  There is also a small ecumenical chapel in a lower level with natural rock walls and candles burning on the rock ledges.

We had a “lovely” day to visit the North Cape, rain, mist and a howling gale which made it difficult to walk from the North Cape centre to the monument and several times we were almost blown over and had to hang on to the legs of the monument to have our picture taken.  We walked, (read projected by the wind) around outside to look at a statue and other carvings before boarding the coach to return to the ship, which left port 45 minutes late.

 

On the way to our next port Kjollefjord we passed Finnkjerka, said to be the most graceful sea cliffs in Norway, as we were sailing past a Zodiac came out from port to meet us and swinging around came up to our side and transferred two men with a package which turned out to be cod fishermen who came on board to provide a talk on cod fishing how the cod are processed for drying and the treatment for the heads.

Leaving the boat we travelled up into the plateau where a Sami tent was set up and we were all (around 30 people) invited inside where we sat around a fire while we were given a talk about Sami customs, clothes and footwear and how they made them and given a bowl of reindeer broth.  We were then taken outside aand shown some reindeer and given a lesson on how to throw a Sami lasso, I was the only one to throw it over the target antlers.

 We then drove across a snow covered plateau with several  cascading rivers from the melting snow to the village of Mehamn and had to wait for about 15 minutes for the ship to arrive from the last port docking at 8:30 which didn’t leave us much time for dinner, a seafood night.

As I write the MS Midnatsol just passed, one of the largest ships in the Hurtigruten fleet and we have rounded a breakwater and docked at Berlevag at 11:05, this is our last port of call today.  No chance of seeing the midnight sun as we have had low cloud and mist all day. 

Ann making friends with one of Father Christmas's reindeer to make sure he calls later in the year.