A Day of Diversity

A fascinating day today. Early, before breakfast or, way before an ordinary sunrise, we sailed into another Nordfjord through a narrow channel of towering, glacier capped cliffs. The entrance into this magical fjord was further blocked by a large rock pinnacle several meters below the surface. Due to the narrowness of the fjord and the submerged rocks no commercial ships or boats attempt an entrance. The fjord is stunning with 1,500' sheer cliffs to the north and 3,000' cliffs to the south. Massive waterfalls cascading to the sea from irredescent blue glaciers capping the tops of the cliffs. We continued sailing up this vertical channel for miles before beaching on a boulder strewn gravel beach. Our captain ran the bow up on the gravel and held the ship pinned against the glacial moraine with the main engines while we disembarked ashore. After our fatiguing hikes over the past week, Paula and I decided to have a quiet day ashore. We climbed a short distance up a recent slide to a comfortable position in a thick moss bed under young beach trees for a relaxing morning of bird watching. We re boarded the Explorer for lunch and began the winding route out of the fjord to the open ocean. For our trip along the coastline and fjords we have taken on two Norwegian pilots. One of the pilots mentioned that the most remote community, a fishing village, was a short detour. The pilot and our Swedish captain radio'd the manager of the village. An amazing sight. The captain sailed past the small fishing wharf and then backed in an paralleled parked. The island is small and the village smaller - a fishing company town. As we were maneuvering to dock the locals were sweeping fish from the wharf. We disembarked several able bodied seaman (AB's) with a fire hose from the ship to help clean the wharf of fish before we put the gang plank out. While clean, the wharf was still a bit odiferous.

We all marched ashore through the small village and visited the local Lutheran church. Very different than North Prairie. A sailboat hung from the ceiling and the pulpit was raised to the right as in a Catholic cathedral. The church was smaller than North Prairie. While we wandered about the small, isolated village, the ships crew ferried, by zodiac, pickled herring and beer to the small harbor for all to enjoy. We are now well north of the Arctic circle and have seen our last sunset until we return to Oslo on June 16th.



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Location:Treava