February 18, 2020 – Stokmarknes and Svolaer

February 18, 2020 – Stokmarknes and Svolaer
The morning was free time until 11am. Peter did a presentation on Photography. It was very interesting. He reminded it us to send him 2 pctures each for our photo contest. I’ll go through mine later today.
It was snowing heavily during most of the day. The outside decks were icy and slippery.
We sailed through a narrow section between islands. It looked like you could almost touch the land.
At 2:15pm we stopped at Stokmarknes. The stop was for only 1 hour so Peter took us out for a 40 minute walk around town. It was a nice walk through downtown.
Dinner was a buffet starting at 5:30pm. Our stop in Svolaer started at 6:30pm. Peter took us to the World War 2 museum. The museum owner has been collecting WWII memorabilia his whole life. The museum is packed with uniforms, guns, posters … He said other people have hobbies like soccer but his hobby is WWII.
As I got back on the ship they said we could see Northern Lights. I hustled up to Deck 9. They were the slow moving lights that appear white to the eye but photograph as greens. I took some pictures but am not posting them because they are too dim.
We had a mini birthday party for Anna Marie. She shared the cake that the ship had given her.
I got back to my cabin at 11pm and went to bed. At 11:30pm they announced that there were more Northern Lights visible. I decided to go back to sleep since it would take me too long to get dressed and go up to the top deck. I learned this morning that they were spectacular. Oh well, good reason to do another trip.