There was no midnight sun yesterday, but something much funnier happened, so I had to add a supplement to Day 7 ;-).
During breakfast today, the captain announced that there was a whale swimming to the left of our ship. Luckily, our MS Polarlys didn't tip over because almost all of the passengers immediately rushed to the left side and eagerly looked out the windows or from the railing. Unfortunately, we didn't see anything!
RUSSIAN BORDER EXPERIENCE
Shortly afterwards, we had another exciting experience waiting for us in the harbor of Kirkenes. Kirkenes is the northernmost port of Hurtigruten and is located in the very north of Norway, squeezed between Finland and Russia. Here, there is a tripoint, the only one in the world where three time zones meet! However, a bi-point was enough for us, as we wanted to get close to the Russian border today with the traditional longboats.
For this, we were first loaded into minibuses by Hans (Norwegian) and Monika (German). Hans manages the excursions around Kirkenes and Monika has visited Hans and his longboats 6 times during her trips with Hurtigruten up here to see the Russian border. On her 7th visit, Hans convinced her to stay. That was about 6 years ago, and since then she has been helping him with his excursions. His two grandsons also joined us today as diligent support.
When we arrived at the small boat harbor, we had to put on life jackets first. They are bright orange and look like diapers from behind:
QUICK STOP IN VARDØ
We arrived in Vardø in the afternoon, the oldest city in Finnmark. We were supposed to have an hour for sightseeing, but now we only had a little over half an hour. But it wasn't so bad because there isn't much to see here. At least we made it to the "main attraction," the fortress. The military was there too:
We have already met many Germans on our trip who have emigrated to Norway, even to the northernmost part. It's beautiful here (at least when the sun is shining), but I would be bored to death if I had to live here every day. Especially in the dark winter!
And tomorrow: We will arrive in Hammerfest, the northernmost city in the world, then continue with a midnight excursion in Tromsø - it is a new addition to the Hurtigruten program and no one could explain what we will actually do there. So it remains exciting!