Day 1 - Start of Hunting the Northern Light on Hurtigruten
MS Kong Harold (the ship's name) started its northbound sailing from Bergen, and reached Tromso on the fifth day.
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| Sailing off from Tromso |
Different Hurtigruten ships sail into each of the ports at designated
times everyday. There are northbound and southbound ships carrying both
passengers and various cargo. Our ship sailed northbound from
Tromso to Kirkenes and then southbound back to Tromso. Kirkenes is the turnaround
port.
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| Day1 - Activity sheet |
The initial assignment of a cabin was with an outside view on the deck level, but we requested to change to an upper deck cabin. At last, the ship sailed off at 6:30pm from Tromso. After unpacking our luggage, we checked out the ship's facilities.
On Board the Hurtigruten
The passengers are locals and foreigners of all ages. The locals use it to travel between coastal towns. The foreign travelers are the usual retirees, families, small tour groups and youngsters.
Some of the facilities:
Some of the facilities:
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| Lounge and the Viewing Deck |
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| Information Centre + Shop |
Dock at Skjervoy
At 22:30 the ship docked at Skjervoy. We dutifully
put on our winter coats and got onto the deck. Anyway, what else could we do?
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| Skjervyoy Port : Loading Bay for Goods and Passengers |
We checked the sky, at least it was clear and not
cloudy.
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| Cloudless clear sky |
The First Northern Lights Sighting
Then, there was a gray streak appearing and slowly turned grayish-green. Pointed the phone-camera towards it and it appeared on the phone screen! (If the intensity is too low, it will not appear on the phone, as experienced in Iceland).Nobody was at the deck except us and one Italian couple! Where were the rest of the passengers?
The lights came and went at different spots. Thus, we got to scan the
sky to await the next appearance. We took photos as we 'wow'ed, 'oh'ed, 'where'ed and
'there'ed. (photos taken with ip7. ip6 has blur images)
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| First Sighting of Northern Lights : Grayish Green |
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| More 'Dancing' Northern Lights |
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| Light above the town |
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| More Lights above the town |
End of Northern Lights show / Sailing off again
It was gone after 10-15 minutes. What an experience! The above-shown images are 'fair at best'. Thus, it's definitely a very different feel and experience when seeing the lights with your own eyes as opposed to seeing them through captured images. Thus, remember to view with your own eyes! :)
Ok, mission accomplished after just few hours of sailing! We could disembark if the journey onwards get too boring?! ;)
We went back to the cabin while chatting excitedly about the encounter.
The ship sailed off from Skjervyoy and the sea turned choppy. It is advisable to bring seasick pills.
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