June 20 - Lofoten Islands, Norway

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Let's start with last night's topic, but it was not good news. It was not foggy last night, but instead it was heavily overcast. You could tell there was a bright blob behind the clouds, but nothing worth a picture. That leaves us with a photo David took at 12:15 AM the first night after we crossed the Arctic Circle. It's not as perfect as he had hoped, but it is the sun above the horizon at midnight.

This morning we arrived at our next port. It is a "tender port" though, so we did not have any excursions scheduled. We still had a 7:00 AM wake-up call when they lowered the ships tenders from below our balcony. Those mechanisms are pretty noisy.

We went to the dining room for breakfast. After the excursion people had left the ship, there was no problem for David to go ashore while Janet knitted. Unfortunately, it started raining as his tender arrived at the pier. This is a strange place in that the pier is about 2 kilometers from each of two small towns (Gravdal and Leknes). Each of the towns are 2000 people or fewer. It would have been within walking distance on a good day but didn't seem like as much fun in the rain. We are still more than 100 miles above the Arctic Circle, although the temperature today was about 70 degrees before it started raining. So, David looked around briefly and then took the next tender back to the ship. But all-in-all, we have had pretty good weather so far on this cruise.

The Lofoten Islands are an archipelago of 5 larger and 5 smaller islands, connected by a series of bridges and underwater tunnels. These towns are starting to become tourist places, but on a small scale. They mostly rely on fishing for their income.

David brought down some hot dogs and pulled pork from the grill, and we had lunch in the cabin. Then the afternoon was a movie about a singing crocodile and stitching, or a little reading. About 2:30 the rain stopped, and the sky cleared pretty much, but it was too late to start a 4-kilometer round trip walk, still have time to explore the town, and get back to the tender pier by 5:00 for the last boat back to the ship. So instead, Janet ordered a fancy coffee drink to be delivered to the cabin and David went to the ice cream station. He has avoided ice cream for a while so as not to create too much mucus since he didn't want to get his cough back. But this afternoon he had a strawberry milkshake and some chocolate chip cookies. Yes, that seemed like a good alternative to a long walk.

We started the cruise with the plan of doing a lot of restful things, and today seemed like a good time to go back to that philosophy. So, we finished the afternoon with little naps. For dinner in the dining room Janet had an order of Vodka Penne and David had Roast Turkey. Then we went to the Princess Theater and watched an illusionist. He did some tricks and some comedy, and it was an enjoyable evening. Now we have returned to the cabin for the rest of the evening.

Joke: What do you call a paper airplane that cannot fly? Answer: Stationary.

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