The Long Sail South

When one sails almost to the North Pole it takes a long time to get back south. In our case, about three full days in total. Of course without internet access, there was plenty of time for other things, like lectures and eating, like sleeping and eating, like reading and eating and like eating and eating. Did we mention there is a lot of food involved in a Food and Wine themed cruise?? Interesting thing about being “out of contact” for six full days is there were no reports of people going into “internet withdrawal” and they didn’t have to dispense valium to calm peoples’ nerves until we got access back. After losing contact about mid-day June 16, the internet came back to life late on the evening of June 22 and we really didn’t miss it.


The three days at sea passed rather quickly. There has been a good lecture programme, with a destination lecturer, a political lecturer and a doctor whose field of expertise is memory and brain health. His lectures have been particularly well attended. When people remember to show up. :-} We have also had Aaron Brown, the former CNN news anchor, do a couple of very interesting lectures as well. It’s actually a good thing we had these great lecturers onboard, because the weather sucked! Shortly after we left Longyearbyen on Monday we lost the sun and didn’t actually see it again until Friday afternoon! So after five days of the Midnight Sun, we experienced five days of the Midnight Overcast!

Being a Food and Wine cruise, we also had a Guest Mixologist onboard, a fellow by the name of David Nepove, head of the American Bartenders Association and, apparently, the US “King of the Mojito”. He, along with the other American Mixologist, Tony Abu Ghanim (who we met in 2009 and who taught Monica to make Manhattans!) work with Crystal’s bar staff in ongoing training programmes. Along with conducting training for the Barkeeps this cruise, the ship also ran a drink-making competition among the Barkeeps. The winner of the competition got to go “head-to-head” with David in an Iron Bar Chef competition. As we spend a lot of our evenings sitting at the various bars chatting with the staff, for two days Monica became the “taster-in-chief” for the concoctions of Natalia and Helena (The Cove), Vanessa (Sunset) and Rebecca (Pulse Disco). Good thing they all made SMALL drinks!

Bartending competition - Afzal, David & Rebecca

We did have one very different experience during these three days. Our table is hosted by the Assistant Chief Engineer and during our second sea day south we and our tablemates were invited by Janusz to tour the Engine Control Room. We met him at the Front Desk and were escorted down to the Control Room on Deck 4. It was interesting wandering through the “crew area”, reading all the signs and notices posted throughout. The control room itself is not really that large and it’s hard to believe they can actually run the entire ship (if necessary) from this one spot. Here are a few pictures from the tour:

The other “highlight” of this part of the cruise was the Grand Gala Buffet. Because of the port-intensive nature of the first segment, this was the only one we experienced. As usual, there were enormous displays of food in every shape, size and type imaginable. What always amazes us about this buffet is the way people react to it. As if they have not seen food in weeks instead of the maybe three hours since breakfast! We sat at the bar in The Cove with comedian Mike Goddard, who we have known for several years, and watched the proceedings, Monica recording the “history” of the tower of lobster tails that was set up directly in front of the bar. Over the course of thirty minutes it went from full, to half-full to………. GONE!!!

The lobster tower at the start of the buffet

Thursday was our next port of call, the small city of Alesund (pronounced Olsund) about halfway down the Norwegian coast. The city was at one time the centre of the Norwegian fishing industry, but is now the service hub for the offshore oil industry. We actually arrived two hours earlier than scheduled, so once the ship was cleared at 12:30 we set out to do some exploring before our tour. As you can see from the pictures, the city itself is fairly modern by Norwegian standards, due to a massive fire in the early 1900’s that destroyed all but one building in the town centre. The centre is dominated by Mt Aksla, a small hill (can’t really call it a mountain) that sits 418 steps above the town. And yes, we climbed those steps to the overlook, which is where these pictures were taken. After spending some time there, we headed back down the 418 steps for our 2:15PM tour, which promptly drove BACK to the top of Mt Aksla!!!!! Oh well, at least we got to see the view from both sides! We then went on a two hour sail on a catamaran into the largest fjord in Norway. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the greatest, with lots of fog and rain, but we did get a few decent pictures.

The 418 steps from the bottom and a view of people already making the trip

And these from the catamaran tour:

There is a Norwegian tradition of building a bonfire for the first day of summer, and also to celebrate St. John the Baptist. (At least in Norway the fires are kept under better control than they are in Quebec sometimes…) As it happened, that’s the day we were in Alesund so our tour guide spent a little time explaining the celebration. It is really more for the children than the adults, and the larger cities put on large community bonfires - so large that the Alesund bonfire stack was 24 metres high. Last year’s set a Guiness World Record at 32 metres. When we passed by it in the morning, we thought it might be the remains of a lighthouse on a point out in the bay, it was so large. It must have been quite spectacular once it was lit at 10:00 that night. When we left at 8:00, there were already a few smaller bonfires lit along the shoreline. This picture is of the largest one we passed:

No, they weren't burning the blue house down. The captain actually blew the ship's horn to acknowledge this one on the way by.

After a rather bumpy overnight sail, we arrived in Bergen, the “Rain Capitol of Europe”. As you might have guessed, Mother Nature did not disappoint us and it was both rainy and foggy as we sailed in. Our tour was the Scenic Flam Railway, a tour by two different rail lines and bus about 120 KMS into the Bergen countryside. The city itself, or at least what we could see of it as we sailed in, is built into the surrounding hills and is very picturesque. As this was an all-day tour, we unfortunately didn’t get to see anything but a few streets and the railroad station.

The train trip went in two stages, from Bergen to Myrdal and then by “scenic” railcar from Myrdal to Flam, with this second part dropping from almost 2000 metres above sea level to four metres above sea level. As with most of Northern Europe, the train system is electric and, with all of the surrounding hills and mountains, there are a lot of tunnels. So much so, that most of the first train trip was more like riding the Yonge Street subway than a rail line. Long stretches of tunnel interspersed with short open sections. We did get a few pictures along the way.

At Myrdal we switched to the Flammen Bonnen, the scenic train that runs from Myrdal down to Flam. The train travels the steepest incline of any conventional train without the use of a “cog” system. As we mentioned earlier, it drops almost 2000 metres, or almost 6000 feet, over a distance of less then about seven kilometres! We were fortunate to get the last window seats on the car, but unfortunate that they were also located right by the ONE toilet on said car. Larry always says “never get between cruise guests and food or you may get hurt!” Apparently we now also have to add a caveat; “never get between cruise guests and the only washroom or you WILL get hurt!” Larry, who was on the aisle, spent most of the hour this part of the trip took with one or another “guest” almost in his lap in the line up for the can! Even when we stopped for pictures at the Kjossfossen waterfall, a really nice spot, people stayed in line, afraid to lose their spot for the toilet! Nonetheless, we did get some great pictures along the way.

Kjosfossen - see the dancer near the bottom of the photo

After leaving the train we reboarded our buses to drive back UP into the mountains for lunch at the Stahlheim Hotel. This is a traditional, old Norwegian hotel, rated five stars nonetheless, and is famous for the spectacular views from its overlook. After a pleasant buffet lunch we decided to take in the views. While this is a “picture of a picture” taken by Jeremy, one of the ship’s photographers, you get a pretty good idea of just how spectacular the views really are. And from the last picture you get a REALLY good idea of the twisty, turny road, with the nineteen hairpin turns, that our bus took to get back down to the valley floor! We suspect a few people were holding their breath (and maybe praying?) on the way down!!!

Flam - must be bigger than this as Serenity is going there on her next North Cape voyage

After a short picture stop at the Tvinde Falls (the next picture-of-a-picture) we made our way back to Bergen, arriving half an hour late and fifteen minutes before sailing. Where the sun promptly came out for the first time in days. It did make for some great pictures of the sailout though!

Tomorrow we are at sea for the first of two sea days on our way back to Stockholm and the journey’s end.

Sailing to the Svalbard

Because of the number of sea days, nine days out of fourteen in total, the entertainment and lecture program on this cruise is chock-full with different destination, world affairs and special interest lecturers. This one includes an astronaut who has been on 5 space shuttle missions, a few world (specifically Middle East) specialists and Aaron Brown, former CNN news anchor. As if that isn’t enough, this is also a Wine and Food Cruise, so we have a mixologist and an award-winning Norwegian chef.

It is really tough to get to everything and have time for the blog, too. So we checked out the destination lecturer and then we split up, Larry to lecture number 2, and Monica to work on the blog. Since there’s no satellite internet access north of Geiranger (or in it, for that matter) we’ve been writing and planning so we can post as soon as we get back into range.

This morning we passed Bear Island, named not because it is inhabited by any bears, but because Willem Barents, the Dutch explorer, noticed a polar bear swimming near his ship as he sailed by on the exploration that also gave the Barents Sea its name. He figured that the bear must live on the island, so he gave it the name. Apparently all that really lives there are seals and the odd walrus – oh, and ten very intrepid radio engineers. There is a small radio station, for weather, ship and air transmissions, that is manned by a team of ten people who are there for a year or two before they`re rotated out. We did manage to get a picture of their `settlement`. Doesn`t look like there`s too much to do, other than maybe fish…

A while after passing Bear Island, in a practically flat calm sea (where you can see the reflections of the sea birds as they fly near the ship), we noticed a few ships. One looked very military, and the others all looked very similar - commercial fishing trawlers, we assume. In total we saw about seven in the same general area. The rest of the day was spent sailing up the west coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago, and home to some pretty impressive looking mountains. Even if we couldn’t actually see the tops of them for the “sea fog” along the coast! Toward evening the cloud ceiling lifted and we did get finally get a picture of the coastal mountains. And, although far away and not clear enough to get a photo, we did see a pod of Orcas!

Sunday morning brought us the next “highlight” of this part of the trip, a visit to the Arctic Ice Cap. We had been told that finding the ice cap was a pretty inexact science, usually involving sailing north until you found it, wherever it happened to be, however the destination lecturer said he expected we would find it just north of the island of Spitsbergen. This guy should buy a lottery ticket. The top of Spitsbergen is at 80 degrees north latitude and we “bumped into it” at 80 degrees and one minute north! Actually what we bumped into was loose pack ice floating about a kilometre or so below the pack, which is as close as Captain Glenn was willing to go, but we could clearly see the ice pack in the distance. After seeing icebergs the size of large office towers in Antarctica four years ago, these “bergy bits” were not all that terribly interesting to look at, but it was the idea that we were only ten degrees, or about 500 miles as the crow flies, from the North Pole that felt kind of neat. Interestingly, given how far north we were, it was not that terribly cold, only about 2C and with very little wind, other than from the movement of the ship.

At the horizon - the polar ice cap

Our butler, Neil, in the centre

After sailing back and forth a couple of times, Captain Glenn brought the ship to a halt in order to send out the “rescue boat” with a couple of the ship’s photographers to get pictures of the ship. While they were out there, the boat crew also “harvested” chunks of floating sea ice to bring back onboard. The chunks formed the centre pieces of the Cove and Sunset Bars for the rest of the day. Naturally we had to get our picture taken with one of them. Larry’s finger on the ship’s world map gives you an idea of just how far north we are!

At 80 degrees and 1 minute north latitude

As we spent yet another evening (by the clock if not the sun) at the totally inappropriately named (for this part of the cruise, anyway) Sunset Bar, we noticed a rather odd looking cloud formation and couldn’t resist taking this shot:

And here are a few others from the way down to Longyearbyen:

When we arrived at the Galaxy Lounge for the show, Clark told us that he saw Monica on Crystal TV. What??! Then he explained that she was mixing a drink, and all became clear. Crystal’s video team had been shooting new video when we were on Symphony in 2009, and the guest chefs were featured in the Wine and Food Theme Cruise video. So here’s a photo of the TV screen showing Tony Abou-Ganim and Monica…

Monday morning “dawned” (well not really since the sun never actually sets!) bright and sunny and found us in Longyearbyen, the furthest north town in the world. How far north?? Our guide, a young lady named Tea, commented that Lonbgyearbyen was “beyond nowhere”, to which Larry suggested it is actually about 1000 miles beyond “the backside of nowhere”! She didn’t disagree with that assessment either. The town was originally established in 1907 as a coal mining operation by the American Coal Company. At its height, the company operated eight active mines in the surrounding area, and the town, named after the company president, John Longyear, had a population of about 4,000 people, mostly miners. Today, while there is still one mine in operation (owned by a Norwegian company), the town survives mostly on winter tourism - hiking, skiing and dogsledding primarily - and on the approximately 100 cruise ships that visit between June and August.

Our tour was Leisurely Longyearbyen by Foot, as you might guess from the name, a walking tour of the town. A short bus ride brought us to the top of the hill above the town and, for lack of a better description, the main coal scuttle for the mining operations. A very extensive network of cablecar towers brought the coal in large buckets to this building where it was prepared and loaded on ships. While it has not been used since the late 1980’s, the entire system was given “historical” status and remains standing. From there our tour continued on “downhill” to visit the local church, cemetery and part of the residential district, ending at its bustling “downtown” shopping district. After browsing the shops, and buying a couple of souvenir Svalbard coffee mugs, we were back at the ship in time for lunch.

From underneath the coal consolidation building that is now a national monument, along with the towers, cables and 100 of the original buckets used to move the coal

The local church and community hall

Houses - they had a designer pick the colour scheme for the houses, to keep people from getting too depressed in winter...

'Downtown' Longyearbyen

We’re leaving at 3:00 this afternoon, with almost 3 full sea days until we arrive in Alesund on Thursday afternoon. Hopefully, we’ll finally see some of those so far elusive whales. On Saturday evening, the Captain spotted quite a number, but most of us were at dinner at the time. The only reason any of us knew anything was happening was the sudden list to port when the Captain Glenn had to swerve to avoid hitting one of them! He explained that at the Crystal Society Party last night. Since then we’ve been keeping an eye out. We hope we’ll be lucky enough to find a few close enough to get a photo.

Sailing out of the bay

In Pursuit of the Midnight Sun!

Our second sea day, as promised, turned out to be much nicer and calmer than the first one. In fact, it was so calm, we thought we were back in the Baltic again.

Just so you know, this is where the days really start to get longer. Sunsets get later and sunrises get really, really early!! Like at 2:15AM!! It has been more and more evident as we went toward Geiranger when we could see perfectly well all around the stateroom with the lights off and the curtains drawn, at Midnight. The pictures tell you how far north we are and why anyone wanting to get a picture of a sunset is pretty much out of luck!

The primary reason we wanted to take this cruise at this time, around the first day of Summer, was to experience the Midnight Sun and we have not been disappointed. The first thing we learned is that the Midnight Sun actually starts in late April and runs more or less until about the beginning of August. One of our guides told us the next “sunset” will be August 2. Just how different things are was brought home to us on our deck walk Wednesday afternoon. Although it was 3:30 in the afternoon, a time when the sun would “normally” be well to the west of us, it was actually directly “above” and also well behind the ship. To give you a sense of this, think of how low the sun is in the southern sky at about Noon in Toronto in February and you get the idea. This photo was taken at about 4:00 from the aft deck, where we decided to `chill out` after our walk. We sat out in our short sleeves since the sun was shining bright and warm and there was no wind. This is of one of the Lofoten Islands just off the north-western coast of Norway:

Our first experience of the Midnight Sun actually happened Wednesday evening. After the show ended at 10:30 we made our way up to the Sunset Bar, which is located on the top deck all the way at the front of the ship. The Sunset/Palm Court area has windows virtually all the way around it and is a great spot for watching the world go by. When we arrived the sun was about 10 degrees above the horizon in the western sky, but the question in our minds was, how does it get from there to the eastern sky where we see it in the morning? As it happened, Crystal’s Chief Captain is onboard, was also at the bar and, overhearing our conversation, he explained it for us. The sun moves 15 degrees from west to east in an hour. If we were to stay up all night, and sit at the bar watching, the sun would dip low to the horizon, then begin to rise up and would cross the front of the ship from west to east and then start to rise up into the sky. While we had no intention of staying up all night, we did actually get to see this start to happen. The picture below was taken through the window at about 11:15PM, but by the time we left the bar at 11:50PM, the sun had risen to a point where it was no longer directly visible through that same window. In effect, we watched the sun “rise” in the west!!

And just to be extra-touristy, we had to take the photo of the clock outside to show how light it was. For good measure, we thought we`d add a shot of the TV showing the time and the bridge-cam view out beyond the bow.



The bridge view at 2 minutes after midnight

 Friday brought us to our second port of call, Honningsvag, Norway and the Nordkapp. As we didn`t arrive until around noon we had the morning to watch the scenery go by on the way in.

Honningsvag is recognized as the furthest north “city” on the European continent and the Nordkapp, or North Cape, is essentially at the “top” Europe. Our tour was to the Nordkapp Museum and Centre, a 20km drive from the ship. On the way out our local guide told us that fog was very common in June and July and today was no exception. Interestingly, given that it is located above 71 degrees north latitude, and only 1200 miles from the North Pole, thanks to the Gulf Stream the climate is fairly moderate, with average temperatures ranging from about -5C in winter to about +5C in summer. She did say that once or twice a summer the temperature will go up to about 20C and everyone flocks to the ONE beach, aptly called Copacabana Beach, to swim and work on their tan. Of course she did also say the water temperature of the Arctic Ocean and the bay the beach sits against rarely gets above 5C, so no one on the bus asked to stop for a swim!!!!

Here are a couple of pictures of the area:

Honningsvag harbourside

A typical Sami summer camp

The Nordkapp, as you might expect, is a sheer cliff and the Nordkapp Centre sits atop that cliff. Unfortunately for us, the fog sits atop that cliff too so we didn’t get to see much, as the pictures show. We did, however, explore the centre and its surrounding exhibits, including a really interesting movie showing the Honningsvag area through all four seasons. While 24 hours of daylight at this time of the year is inviting, neither of us would be too keen on the 24 hours of darkness that starts with sunset in late November and runs until the next sunrise in late January!!!!

Looking down, before the fog closed in

Larry at an obelisk dedicated to one of the early kings of Norway

A monument dedicated to, and designed by, children

Yes, we were both here at the same time!

Returning to the ship, the evening’s activities included a great Norwegian Buffet dinner, the first production show and the Midnight Sun Cocktail Party in the Sunset Bar as the ship sailed past the Nordkapp, at Midnight, on our way out. As you can see from the pictures, the party was a great time and the Nordkapp was STILL covered in fog as we sailed by!

Around the cape from Honningsvag

The sun at midnight off Nordkapp

'The Horn', an obvious name but a place the Sami and others have used for rites and celebrations for centuries.  Maybe this is where the legend of the Viking horns got its start...

Nordkapp as we passed by at midnight, and still couldn't see anything.  It was the ONLY point covered in cloud.

Tomorrow we have the first of two sea days as we sail to the Svalbard Islands and the city of Longyearbyen, the furthest north town on Earth!