Day 9 (Mon 18th Mar) – Harstad to Stamsund

Five hours sleep later and we were up and about getting ready for the day’s excursion – “A Taste Of Vesteralen”. This was a bus tour starting at Harstad and ending at Sortland where we would meet up with the ship again. After docking at Harstad at 08:15 and boarding the coach, the first place we visited was Trondenes Church and Historical Centre.

The original church on this site on a headland overlooking the harbour, dates from the 11^th century. It was replaced in the 12^th century and again in the 15^th century from when the current building dates. As we entered the church we saw the MS Finnmarken leaving port on its way to Sortland and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering what would happen if anything should make us late for our later connection at Sortland. In the church they held a short inter-denominational service for our benefit (with translations into German and Japanese for the benefit of other tourists) before we visited the nearby centre to read more about the history of the area.

After touring the exhibition we continued on our way. As we toured the frozen landscape, the guide explained amongst other things, how he has two cars .. a four-wheel drive fitted with winter tyres for when the snow is on the ground .. and an Austin-Healey 3000 that he uses in the Summer (presumably for just a month or two!). We travelled on along the coast via Kasfjord and Borkenes marvelling at the mountainous scenery until we reached a ferry at Refsnes.  On boarding the ferry, we were provided with drinks and nibbles in the shape of waffles and the local cheese.

After docking at Flesnes we continued on our way to Sortland via Sigerfjord. As I’ve mentioned before, the Norwegians are well used to driving in ice and snow with their (studded) winter tyres. But the surface must have been a bit worse than they are used to. The coach driver slowed down while driving through one village mentioning to the guide the road was a bit ‘slippy’. There was another point in the journey when the guide casually mentioned we had just finished passing an area prone to avalanches! The area was said to be good for spotting moose and sea eagles but we saw none.

The coach guide had been in touch with the ship during the tour to ensure we synchronised our arrival. In the event, we were a bit earlier than planned and pulled into a lay-by. But after a few minutes wait (and with no doubt the practise of having done the same thing many times over), we started to make our way over the bridge to Sortland as the MS Finnmarken steamed underneath, ship’s hooter blaring out and passengers waving from the decks (I think they had made an announcement on the ship as well).

Back on board, the previous late night and early morning start had taken their toll so I needed a ‘power nap’. So at 2:30pm in the afternoon I crawled under the covers, set the alarm and managed to sleep for a couple of hours. Later on at 18:30 we docked at Svolvaer where we took the opportunity to visit the gallery of a local artist who has some of his artwork aboard the MS Finnmarken. The artist (Dagfinn Bakke) has a collection of humorous cartoons on the ship – my personal favourite being the one of a man looking at a plan of the ship with a ‘you are here’ arrow pointing to one deck and a ‘your wife is here’ arrow pointing to another deck at the other end of the ship.

I went to dinner that evening and some of our party of six were missing having been struck down with a tummy bug. I started to feel a bit light-headed and queasy myself and feared the worst. We had just begun to cross a stretch of open water so I hoped it might be sea-sickness instead. I excused myself, skipped the rest of the meal and went back to the cabin to take a sea-sickness pill and to lie down. But instead of feeling better I gradually started to feel worse ..