Crossing the Arctic Circle

This morning we crossed the Arctic Circle.  This merited great celebrations and baptism by ice and ice cold water too.  The freezing mixture was poured on each willing participant while the throng looked on.

Andrew was one of the first to get baptised and here is his reaction to the icy cold drench.

This chap really got a bucketful of ice.

I am far too chicken-hearted for that sort of activity and instead, I had my photo taken with Neptune.  Underneath the costume is one of the members of the crew, a Norwegian Amazon.  Giske, who is well over 6ft,  is very talented, speaks several languages, plays the piano and has a nice singing voice and entertains passengers with little recitals around the bar in the evenings.

Here she is singing before a briefing session for the English speakers.

We continue to be very lucky and have wonderful sunny weather but we have now entered a phase of the Hurtigruten route with chilly fjords and craggy peaks that remain snow-capped all year.  The heavy jackets and hats are starting to come out on this part of the trip.  The vegetation on the islands we pass is also getting sparser the further north we go.

The view over Bodo, regarded as the commercial centre and jumping off point for the Lofoten Islands.  The town is not considered very exciting architecturally, lacking old buildings as it had to be completely rebuilt after being virtually levelled by WWII bombing.

But the mountains around Bodo are very dramatic, making up for the architecture.

Another lovely sunset.