Advertisement
Published: August 2nd 2015
Edit Blog Post
Following all day at sea yesterday and cruising overnight we docked in Honningsvag at 8:00am and by 9:00am we were cleared to leave the ship. No - we haven't left the rain behind in Russia, as today was very overcast and misty with intermittent showers. The high for the day was 9C and this is Summer.
Honningsgvag is located on the large island of Mageroya in the extreme northern reaches of Norway and is a small, tight-knit fishing community with colourful hillside homes overlooking the harbour and Barents Sea
After the restrictions of not being able to leave the ship in any of the Russian ports unless we were on a organised tour, and even those with a Russian visa were unable to just wander about and also had to have proof of a tour organised with a local tour company. It was with a sense of freedom I, armed with my umbrella left the ship and wandered around this small village.
The North Cape is one of the major attractions here and a number of passengers left on the first departure at 8:15am and there was a second departure at 12:15pm. The North Cape is the point
where the Norwegian Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean, meets the Barents Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean. Because I had been to the North Cape before I had decided to not go there again and instead went crabbing for the giant king crab followed by a visit to an ice bar. We departed the ship at 12:30pm on foot to the North Cape Adventure Centre where we were fitted out with flotation suits that served as life jackets. Then a brief stroll later we boarded two deep-sea raft on which we straddled the seats like riding a horse. Once everybody was seated we set off at great speed towards the Sarnesfjord to the crab pots. I very wisely chose to sit at the back knowing there was a risk of getting even wetter, and with the speed these raft travel at the rain stings your face but I was able to hide behind the passengers in front of me.
They pulled up one crab pot which was full of the king crabs, they pulled a couple out for us to see and of course for the obligatory photographs holding one. Following that we continued on to go ashore
to Lavvo Camp, which is a Sami tent where the fire was going and we sat around on reindeer skins and were either drinking beer, tea or coffee while the crabs were cooked then cooled down ready for us to eat. Prior to going into the tent we watched the macabre act as the crabs were killed and legs the chopped, off an into pieces. Once cooled the legs were served to us along with lemon pieces, mayonnaise and polar bread. They tasted so good!
We sped back to Honningsvåg, doing some high speed manoeuvres, turns, etc. for the benefit of those aboard the ship then our adventure was over and we left the rafts, turned in our flotation suits and headed to the Artico Ice Bar. We were shown a short video on how they remake the bar each year with ice from the lakes of Lappland. We were then dressed in warm capes and partook of a couple of non-alcoholic drinks served in glasses made from ice, which we later threw into the harbour having made a wish as we did so. After taking the obligatory photos we raced back to the ship to meet the boarding
deadline of 4:30pm ready for sailing at 5:00pm
Advertisement
Tot: 0.347s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 52; dbt: 0.1487s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb