Not that we’ve seen them, but now we are polar bears. At 7:26 am this morning we crossed the Arctic Circle. We were lucky to be on the side of the ship where we could see the marker – an open globe monument on a large rock (too small to call it an island).
At 10 am the ship had an official, fun celebration with Neptune making a proclamation followed by their version of the Polar Plunge. Passengers queued up to have a ladle of ice water poured down their backs, after which they got schnapps to warm them back up. Dan braved the ritual since I was there to get a picture of it.
We skipped the Aurora show last night as we both were in dire need of sleep. There should be another good one tonight, though. There is a tear in the sun’smagnetic field which results in great displays around the vernal equinox. Skies are clear, so the days are sunny and not bad if one stays out of wind. Many stars at night.
We stopped at the town of Bodø which is pronounced Bood-eh, where our group went on a walk. Now we’re sailing past an amazing landscape and will get to the trollfjord later. There we will be served Troll Soup at midnight – will try to stay awake just to see what the heck that is.
At lunch today we discovered that another couple in our group had been on the same Castles & Cathedrals river cruise as we were. Small world.