29th July: Tromso
Awelina of Sweden
James Collier
Sun 29 Jul 2012 17:00
Norway, and it's a different country. The promised north easterly wind only just arrived as James was on watch in the small hours this morning but we all got out of our bunks to help anchor and to smell the country side. Yes - smell. It smells of land: pine trees, grass, bracken and farm animals. There are trees and greenery on the shore line. It was dusk but you could see little coloured houses along the fjord below mountain sides soaring into the low cloud, and street lights. Wait a minute, street lights, switched on?. That means it's NIGHT!
We anchored for 5 hours in a small bay called Sandbukta off the Island of Vannoya to wait for the tide to turn in our favour to take us down the fjord towards the entrance to Langsundet and thence to Tromso. It's a softer, greener place but the winds are still strong and unpredictable with funnelling and katabatic gusts.
We have had a fabulous run of about 25 miles down the fjords to Tromso arriving at the town harbour to tie up at around 4pm local time. A new concept for us is that it’s ‘pay and display’ parking for the boat; we have to put coins in a machine which then spits out a ticket which we stick inside one of the boat windows. Not sure how parking tickets get issued if we go over our time.
The scenery here has us all fascinated by the colours and Tromso itself after 5 weeks of arctic desert appears to be a major metropolis with a CHOICE of Bars, hotels and a shopping mall as well as municipal parks with flowers and trees. We are all in culture shock.
We currently have flights home booked for Tuesday but nowhere yet to leave the boat, that is tomorrow’s job. Also for tomorrow will be the last photo diary before we leave the country.
From Fiona @ MISD/HR CU :- see you Wednesday morning; make sure the coffeeis on.