Homeward Bound

An ice sculpture

This holiday is beginning to wind down: in fact when we turned round at Kirkenes I felt a change. Now we're at the end of the ninth day it's feeling like the beginning of the end of the school holidays.

At today's lecture Dr John enliven us all  with a thrilling, enthusiastic talk on solar eclipses. It was not simply his knowledge of the event; but the tales of the far away places where  he'd witnessed numerous eclipses over 30 odd years. He's covered the globe chasing the moon's shadow and each destination provided a wealth of stories which he recounted with such pleasure. You were carried along by his passion and his story telling. I can guarantee no one fell asleep in that lecture and he received a well deserved round of applause at the finish.

Otherwise the day had been a bit of a damp squib. Again the clouds obscured the sky with no chance of the Northern Lights breaking through. I didn't go to the salmon filleting on deck 9 or visit the Hurtigruten museum at Stokmarknes. The evening meal was disjointed since I found the table I had shared, since the start of this trip, with by now firm friends was occupied by strangers. I sat on my own eating a decidedly below par meal.

We parked at Svolvaer for a couple of hours in the evening and I visited the Magic Ice Bar. It was not bad, the ice sculpture was clever and they'd clearly put in a lot of work but I was glad to get back to the boat to spend a couple of hours chatting with three new friends I'd made on the trip.

Tomorrow we recross the Arctic Circle at 8:45 am and at 12:30 pm meet on deck to look at "The Seven Sisters". I hope to have a walk in Bronnoysund in the evening and shake out the cobwebs. Who knows I might hear one those famed mermaids.