Vistas magnifico

We'd been motoring all night since passing North Cape and while the crew undoubtedly knew exactly where we were, the rest of us were totally ignorant, even when the captain announced in his morning bulletin, what our current longitude and latitude was.

Because we were in dense fog, nothing at all was visible, though occasionally, a rocky island might be glimpsed, but as the fog prevented the back of the ship being seen from the front, only very close rocks were visible - we assumed the radar was working well !!!

Eventually, the fog suddenly cleared, and we had some splendid views:

But from time to time, we'd plough back into the fog banks:

And the lovely landscape would be lost again. But much of the coastline of northern Norway was visible from time to time, so most of us stood around on deck admiring it:

The Observatory on deck 9 was especially popular as it offered the views without the cold winds:

Sadly, our navigator couldn't find a route through the fjords and islands that was fog-free, so all too soon we were enveloped in the cold dense fog banks again.

Days aboard the ship are made all the more merry with shows, games and all sorts of entertainments. Evening dinner tonight was another formal affair, black tie etc, or tuxedo if you have sufficient style. We stuck to tried & tested; here's Didier & Barbara:

And Charlie & Bernadette (Didier & Bernadette are our Belgian dining partners):

After dinner, the captain announced another detour, to somewhere called the Trollfjord. This didn't mean anything to most of us, but we were told it was worth being out on deck for, even though it would be quite late when we got there, about 22:30.

It was worth the wait !!!

The view from the Observatory while being serenaded by the pianist was pretty good, but it soon became obvious as we got deeper into the fjord, that the mountains either side couldn't be seen from inside, so most people moved outside.

We briefly stopped in the small fjord which appeared to be a dead end, and unseen by some of us, a lifeboat was lowered. This then sped off past our starboard side with the crew waving to us and encouraging us to wave back - we later realised that this was the photographer wanting us to wave for the video he was making of the occasion.

Only then did we see that it wasn't a dead end but had a narrow gorge leading off the main channel, into which our lifeboat sped, with our (comparatively) massive ship following:

From the outside, it really didn't look as though the Black Watch could possibly fit through this gorge, but we motored on at a good speed. It was getting very dark by now, but everyone wanted to take photos - I didn't have the heart to tell them that their flashes wouldn't illuminate the fjord (but it looks good on the video)!

 

 The rocky walls seemed to be getting ever closer on the port side:

And an almost vertical rock cliff towered over the starboard side as we looked up past the bridge where the crew were so capably controlling our passage:

Then the channel opened out into a small bay with a few houses, little boats and a small brightly lit hydro-electric power station.

Our lifeboat stopped in one corner of the bay and we stopped in the centre. Looking around, although our ship isn't big as cruise ships go, it was probably the absolute maximum size ship that could get into Trollfjord, certainly something the passengers on 'Vision of the Seas' would never get to see.

With a combination of bow-thrusters and propellers & rudders, the crew then very skilfully turned our ship on the spot, with maybe a few tens of metres clearance all round - little room for  error:

And then back out the way we'd come in:

There were mutterings of 'Costa Concordia', but I suspect the captain had done this before and knew the waters very well, so as we watched the rocks pass almost within touching distance, all was well and we emerged safely into the night at the other end.

A spontaneous round of applause echoed around the ship as we slowed in the wider part of the fjord to pick up our lifeboat before cruising on into the night.

More tomorrow hopefully.