Day 5: Crossing the Arctic Circle one ice cube at a time!

Tiny, crappy pic of the Arctic globe as we crossed
over

First night on board ship and we (or rather, I) discovered that life on deck can be rather noisy!  Now, as you probably know by now, my trusty ManpanionTM loves to sleep - I discovered last night that his Special Set of Sleep Skills now extends to being able to happily snooze through a gazillion ton ferry dropping anchor and docking at 4am in the morning at Port Arse-end of Nowhere.  I'm not sure whether to be mildly irritated or just super impressed.

Anyway, so my day started very early, and I spent an hour or so playing Cookie Jam (level 572 - whoo hoo!) before I finally gave it up and got up around 6am.  I got dressed as quietly as I could as I didn't want to wake ManpanionTM - although, thinking about it more rationally once the caffeine kicked in, I probably could have slammed the wardrobe doors and made as much noise as I liked given his heroic

My first (probably not last) glass of Arctic Circle
champagne!  Huzzah me!  Way to cross!!

So, as it happened, it wasn't planned but i just happened to be awake, dressed and shuffling about the ship at 7.15am when we actually formally crossed into the Arctic Circle!  The occasion and location was marked by a lighted globe on a little island, so you could see exactly when you crossed over.  I tried to take pics with my iPhone (had left my camera in the room) but they were all a bit crap, so sorry about that.  Also, as luck would have it, it was also tradition to celebrate the crossing with a glass of champagne - so that's what I did.  And it was delicious.  It was a bit of a shame that ManpanionTM wasn't with me to share the moment but I made sure to savor the champs for the both of us, so at least one of us was awake for it!

Assorted mystery meats for breakfast.
Your guess is as good as mine - and I was there.

By this stage it was about 7.30am so I decided to go for breakfast, seeing as I'd been up for ages!!  Breakfast was another buffet style affair - it was pretty basic - lots of meats of various stages of identifiableness, eggs, beans, toast and the little weird sausages that you only ever eat when you are away on vacation, having hotel buffet breakfasts.  But there was enough to eat and after a lovely cup of tea, I meandered back to the room where I finally poked ManpanionTM into awakeness and showered while he went and got breakfast.

After breakfast, we put on some warm layers and headed out on deck where we got to enjoy an absolutely stunning sunrise at around 10am.  I won't do it justice trying to describe it, as it was more to just be experienced, but it was simply beautiful.  The Arctic wilderness is just breathtaking.  As we were on deck, the ship's announcer (who is a study in wonderfully tired and exasperated sounding announcements - in 4 languages!) said that it was time for the Crossing the Arctic Circle ceremony.

Spectacular, stunning sunrise

We were too busy enjoying the stunning scenery to pay attention to the crush of people that had formed just in the foyer of deck 9, so we decided to ignore it and focus on the once-in-a-lifetime scenery that we were experiencing instead.  After about half an hour, though, the throng of people had ebbed away, so we wandered over to see what the fuss had all been about.  We could see several crew members with large ice buckets and a tray full of a local apple schnapps.  We could also see that the deck directly in front of them was curiously littered with ice cubes.  Interesting.

What soon became apparent was that the "initiation ceremony" consisted of a little mini-version of the ice bucket challenge - to signify crossing the Arctic, one of the crew took a big ladle full of icy cold water and ice cubes and dumped them down the back of the neck of a (un)willing victim!  In return, the initiate was handed a little shot glass full of apple schapps as a reward!  As I felt I'd already done my duty and observed the real crossing at 7.15am this morning, I decided that it really was up to Matt to take one for the team and to do his duty for both of us.

It was pretty damn funny.  Here's the video:

What a sweetheart.  I do love that man.

After a quick pit stop back in the room (shedding ice cubes out of his ass the whole time he walked back from deck!), a nice restorative cup of tea was in order.  Given our unique and fun location, you were also able to buy postcards that would then have an Arctic circle stamp and postmark, so we did that, ready to send home for bragging rights at a later date.  Today also was laundry day for us on the MS Midnatsol, so we found the laundry room and got our stinky smalls washed and clean.

We decided that had been quite a lot of activity so it was time to rest and recuperate with a snooze.  So back to bed we went, setting our alarm to wake us up just in time for lunch at 1.30pm!  Like yesterday, lunch was buffet style with pre-assigned seating - again, the food was OK - with enough to choose from so you didnt go hungry.

We'd actually docked just before lunch and so were in the town of Borne for a few hours.  We decided it would be good to get off the ship for just a few moments, so we headed out just after 2pm to walk into town.  By this stage, it was almost pitch black again (at 2pm!) and the ship was leaving at 3.30pm so we only had time for a very quick walk out and back.  Again, the town was almost completely deserted with no shops open and pretty much no-one about.  The sidewalks and road were slick with thick thick ice, so you had to be incredibly careful not to slip and fall.  We were bundled up well against the elements - just as well as the wind was bitingly cold, but we were still warm and toasty in our Canada Goose coats and rabbit fur hats.

I was a bit nervous about missing the ferry, so we only walked out for about 15mins before turning round and heading back in again, so we were safely back on board well before 3pm.  There was nothing to see anyway, so we weren't missing much.  ManpanionTM wasn't feeling too great, so we decided it was time for another nap, so both of us crashed out again til about 5pm.  I know it sounds really pathetic - but its so difficult to stay awake and have any energy at all in this darkness!  The sun only just lifted itself above the horizon today for the briefest of moments, before dipping back down, so it never gets to be full daylight.  Its hard to explain unless you've experienced it but its very draining.

Its also very very dry on board.  Both of us were feeling like dehydrated husk versions of ourselves, so we reminded ourselves to try and drink more water.   My eyes, in particular, felt very dry or as I put it - "like two big scratchy balls in my face".  As my ManpanionTM peed himself laughing, I realized my choice of words probably hadn't been the best.  Ah well.

Dinner was again at 8.30pm and, after dinner, we headed back to the room for an early night (it had been a busy day) but were interrupted from our potential slumber by a cabin announcement that we were about to pass through some beautiful scenery at 10pm, followed then by fishcakes and potatoes on deck 9!  Well, OK then!  I'm not one to pass up free scoff and a pretty view.  So off we trotted back up on deck - as it was dark we initially saw bugger all but, as our big scratchy balls acclimatized, we could start to make out the shapes of these incredibly dramatic mountains and cliffs rising up on either side of us.  I'm not entirely sure which fjord we were passing through, but it really was beautiful and makes me think about coming back in sometime in the future during the summer, so we can see more of this gorgeous scenery I'm just getting the scantest impressions of right now.

After about a half hour of looking at the imposing, impressive view and eating fishcakes and storing potatoes in pockets, we decided to call it a night and finally retire for our final sleep of the day.  It had been a fun day on board - alas, no Northern lights again just yet, but we still have a few days left, so not all is yet lost!!!  Keep your fingers crossed for us, blogwatchers!!

Tomorrow, its New Years Eve!!  Yippee!!!!

Docked up in the port of Borne.  Fooking chilly and so
so much ice!

"Cold?  What cold?"
Matt finds his only special way to keep warm
(he's the one on the left, btw)

Interestingly weird graffiti in town.

D,Mouse and Oscar P.Lion enjoying a little
onshore leave

Interesting ferry boat art of what must be a petri
dish full of the communicable hand-borne diseases
you can get if you don't use the handskum (hilariously
Norwegian translation for hand sanitizer!) provided

Tonight's dinner menu

Laundry day on the MS Midnatsol and I'm getting
full value out of my ManpanionTM