Havila Castor: Hurtigruten Museum: Trollfjord and Svolvær (reprised)

Absolutely perfect weather for most of the day.  Bright and warm sun, calm seas, soft breezes.  We planned on spending most of the day just sitting on the boat drinking coffee and snapping pictures of the stunning scenery.

We did make two short excursions.  The first was to the Hurtigruten Museum.  This was a great little museum that housed an entire retired Hurtigruten Mail boat plus the better part of an old Hurtigruten Steamer that predated the Mail boat.  Comparing our Havila Castor to the museum boat which was circa 1955, I more thoroughly appreciate the advances these boats have made in both creature comfort and safety.  Seemed like the old boats did not navigate through all these islands back then as well as they do now.  Our boat has radar, sonar, and precise global positioning technology to guide her through all these tiny channels and couldn't be safer.  But, still I wish Sandy had visited that museum after we had finished the passage, not during.

This building houses an entire retired Hurtigruten Mail Ship circa 1955

The 1907 Steamer lounge

The Steamer 1907

Captain's Bridge 1955

We visited the Trollfjord again, this time in daylight.  Still spectacular!

This evening Sandy and I walked through the little town of Svolvær.  This is like the Venice of Norway (a tiny version).  It is built on islands and piers connected by auto and pedestrian bridges.  The place is simply adorable. 

The town is built on islands and piers extending from those islands

The Mountain makes the end of the street a definite end

They dry hundreds of millions of fish on racks like these each spring

Another bit of fun tonight, right around 9:00pm we sailed past our sister Havila ship, the Capella.  We all turned out on deck and the crew provided Norwegian flags for us to wave.  The two ships were blasting their horns and there was a lot of yelling going on.  It was a lot of fun and I think our boat was more enthusiastic.