Christmas at sea

Finally a small update from the far north.

I'm once again out sailing and working hard. Right now we're heading north from Tromsø towards Kirkenes. The ship is full. 170 new guests arrived this afternoon in Tromsø and they are all hoping to see the Northern lights. I've just announced the message I recieved from the bridge about clear and beautiful Northern Lights ahead of the ship and I can hear the passengers running up the stairs. Just as fascinating every time. Suddenly old grandma and grandpa are as light footed as they were back in 1949. :)

I wanted to tell you about Christmas at sea. Today I´m sailing with the MS Nordnorge that was built in 1997 but during the holidays I sailed with the MS Nordstjernen. The "Grand old lady", oldest in our fleet and the most charming if you ask me. She´s going to be retired in September after 56 years in service, and I´m really happy I got to spend my first Christmas at work, on her.

We stayed over night in Bergen the 24th and had a wonderful evening meal. Just take a look at the picture of our colder dishes on our Buffet.

Yummy!

The dining hall looked nice and red through out the holiday as well. It truly has such a nice atmosphere I would have liked for you all to come and visit!

The 25th we headed north as usual at 22.30. I went to sleep but that was one rocky night. We had the hurricane "Dagmar" above our heads and at some point I had to put my knee between the mattress and the wall to prevent sliding and flying in my bed. Around 3. AM two huge waves hit us. The whole ship was shaking and I could hear lots of noise, but I was too tired and annoyed to get up. Finally around 3.30 AM i managed to get some sleep. 

I woke up to silence. We were still docked in Måløy waiting for the storm to pass over the open and famously rough sea strech "Stadt" that was still between us and the next port of call: Ålesund. Måløy looked like this:

No power! No phone line! Later we learned that it had been the worst storm in decades. Even though we had secured everything on board to our best knowledge (and believe me, the people on Nordstjernen know how to secure things), our ice cubes machine had flown from its place and almost cut the girl in the cafe in two halves! Oh boy! :/ There was broken glass all over the floor. Must have been a rough night for those on duty...

Our fridge in the bar looked like this...

Later I recieved a storm certificate. Quite cute: 

At 10 we set of to cross Stadt and I waited for the huge waves that we thought would hit us. What a disappointment!! Hmm well here is a photo of us being a little sea sick

The journey between Ålesund and Trondheim was quite rocky as well but we made it there safe and sound and hoped we would be able to leave it at noon like the schedule says. After a little back and forth, we ended up staying there for another 12 hours resulting in us skipping the next 11 ports and making my home port Harstad the next stop. Luckily from there most things went just as planned and we had a wonderful time with the sweet sweet guests. 

Trondheim the 26th of December

I have to say that I´d sail Nordstjernen again through any storm. She really is my favourite ship and I will be very sad to see her retire. However I think it´s about time. She´s not in the best of shape and rather expensive to keep running. Not to forget, probably not that environmentally friendly. 

I´d like to end the post with a picture of how most of the Christmas journey onboard looked: 

Am I not lucky to be able to experience these sights? :)