This morning is all about the scenery and at one point we passed the island of Andoya which is said to have one of the largest runways in Norway. Apparently it is a military base for submarines and therefore a lot of traffic comes in and out of here, but this is scheduled to close next year so they are not sure if the town and airport will continue to operate. It is on the edge of the continental shelf and the weather on one side of the island is significantly different to that on the other. This is by the Risoyrenna channel, this was a sound that people used to cross on horseback but was dredged to allow shipping through. It has been dredged to a depth of 7m and has to be continually dredged to keep the channel clear, apparently our ship is 5m so we are ok, but the captain has to concentrate on what he is doing as it really isn’t very wide. This area is one of the key areas for whale watching but the main season is the end of October to mid January so we are not likely to see any. As we got to the end of the passage we docked in Risoyhamn which is home to the Kings Stone, this is either where three mythical swords are buried or it had been signed by three kings. A search of google later suggested that it has been signed by the last three kings of Norway the last signature being in 2012. There is another stone somewhere that has the mystical swords, the story is rather like the lady in the lake but that isn’t here! We sat outside for a bit longer then moved inside until it was time for lunch, although it is a glorious sunny day the air temperature is still quite low so it was quite chilly. Our trip this afternoon was a boat ride to look at Trollfjord and hopefully see some sea eagles. Rather surprisingly only about 30 people had signed up for it, which is probably all the boat we got onto would comfortably take but all the same I expected it to be more popular. This was another ship to ship transfer but this time the boats were moving, all the same I think it is easier to get off our ship at sea that it has been at some of the ports! I was a little surprised that as soon as we pushed away from the Hurtigruten they started feeding the seagulls that were swarming around but we were told a bit later on that this ‘fools’ the Eagles into thinking that there are fish around. When we first set off there were four Eagles but they were very high up and didn’t seem to be interested in coming down to see us. We headed off into Trollfjord which was as narrow as it had looked the other day, and although very short is really spectacular, on the way down the Fjord we saw a couple of waterfalls and then we saw an eagle circling up above, basically they have a selection of dead fish on board and when they see an Eagle they puff it up with air to keep it from sinking and throw it overboard in the hope that the Eagle will get it before the seagulls do! This had mixed results, sometimes the seagulls managed to pick the fish up and fly off with it, others the Eagle got it. I have to say considering Norway has an overpopulation of sea eagles and they capture them for relocation to other countries such as Ireland and Scotland we didn’t actually see that many. We got to the end of Trollfjord and turned round, there is a single house at the end of the Fjord that has its own water and electricity from a hydroelectric plant that was just behind their house. As we came out of the Fjord the Hurtigruten was just entering it, they didn’t play music this time as for some reason a local choir was onboard so they had convinced them them to sing as the ship entered the Fjord. We watched them sail a little way into Trollfjord then we set off down the coast in search of more Sea Eagles. We spotted a couple more and even had one catch the fish in flight, very impressive, all too soon we were entering Svolvaer to re-join the ship but it was great to see this magnificent birds in flight. The town is really cute and actually in the Lofoten region which is the trip we couldn’t do the other day so we did at least get to see some of the fishing villages that are typical of this region. The boat is actually in port for a couple of hours so we decided that rather than the sea food buffet that is on offer we would have something in town so we went and found a pizza restaurant and had a great pizza then went back to the ship and found a seat in the bar ready for the next part of our journey.
