Saturday, September 7, 2013 - Ports of Norway

Saturday held other things of interest besides our cross country bus tour. We missed the port of Risoyhamm by taking the bus. We joined the ship at the port of Sortland. This city was of interest because many of the buildings and even the Coast Guard (which is headquartered here) ships were painted blue. Painting everything blue was a millennium project.

 

Stockmarknes Norway

In the next port, Stokmarknes, we went to see the Museum of the Coastal Express. It told the story of the Hurtigruten shipping line which was founded in 1881. They had preserved one of the original ships, so we could see how the ships had changed. This is the company running the ship that we are on.

Leaving the Troll Fjord

Late in the afternoon we had an interesting sail through the strait of Raftsundet. We took a side trip into Troll Fjord, 2 km long and 100 m wide at the mouth. The ship barely fit, but it was a beautiful visit. The walls of the mountains go straight up. They are covered with beautiful colored lichen and plants, with small waterfalls. The base of the rocks look rather like giant toes, hence the name Troll because they turn to rock in the sun. The ship has to turn around on its thrusters because it is such a tight spot. We saw lots of birds and even spotted a sea eagle. What a marvelous sight that was!

Dusk in Solvear Norway

Our last event of the day was a walk in Solvear (also known as the capital of the Lofoten Islands) just as the sun was setting. The colors in the sky were magical. In fact, this is a place favored by artists to work. The town was a center for the cod fishing industry, so they have preserved some of the cod drying racks – large triangle shape, wooden racks where the fresh caught fish were hung to freeze dry. They also had an area of huts like the fishermen would have used for shelter when the weather was bad. They used to be all over the area. These are now used by tourists (don’t look in the windows). One of the huts even had a fish drying rack on the roof – it was doing double duty! Now the city is producing cod and halibut juveniles for use in the fish farming industry.

Our last port in this Lofoten Island part of Norway was Stamsund. We had passed by most of these ports in the late evening or early morning on our trip north. Now we will sail across the Vestfjord to continue on our way south.