Boating Adventures

I love to travel, take pics, and to tell stories. Although my health makes that difficult these days, I still manage to have the occasional adventure, like this Norwegian trip. 

I mention this because you’d think I’d be an adept blogger. Unfortunately not. I’m always playing catch-up and I truly admire those who stay current like my brother Jeff.

For the rest of this trip, in order to get and remain current, I’m just going to post pictures each day with minimal commentary. That will be my contribution to the blog.

Here are photos from Sunday March 15.

We’re stopped in Kjollefjord, above 72 degrees latitude near the northern cape.  This is as far north as we get.  Tomorrow morning we arrive in Kirkenes, then turn around.

I’m enjoying all of this. 

We crossed the Arctic Circle this morning.  Smooth sailing, with lots of scenery and small port stops.  As usual, I’ve enjoyed visiting local  marinas.  Small boat cruising opportunities here seem almost endless.

We are travelling a route called the Coastal Express. The ship makes 34 stops over 6 days heading north along the Norwegian coastline. The ship then repeats the same stops on the return voyage south.

Our fist night aboard, I didn’t sleep much. Here are a collection of my photos taken leaving Bergen, at the two subsequent stops: on Saturday night: Flora and Maloy, and early morning Sunday.

We had a great day walking around Bergen. Embarcation was at 6 PM and we’re now heading north.

It’s my first time on a cruise ship.  24 hours in, I like it.  A lot.  And Norway too.  We’re aboard the Midnatsol, the oldest ship on the route.  I was hoping to get on a new hybrid ship, but honestly I don’t think the experience would be any different.  There are about 450 passengers aboard, something like 50% capacity.  We’re in an accessibility cabin which is oversized and immediately adjacent to the lifeboats. All good 😊

Today we were off the boat in Ålesund.  Very picturesque.  No rain.  Expected high tomorrow is 10C, which our guide says is summer weather.  We stop in Trondheim for a few hours.

It’s Susan here. For those of you who don’t know me,, I’m Jeff’s sister, aka Suey, a prolific amateur photographer.

The following is my recount of the memorable start to our boat trip.

We left downtown Toronto about 6 PM Wednesday March 11 bound for a coastal expedition heading north from Bergen, Norway on Saturday.

I had a great plan – we could save some money by having a one night stop over in Amsterdam which seemed perfect when Jeff said he’d never been there.

It was not a good idea. Some 38 hours later, we were finally in Bergen. Every leg of the trip was compromised.

It began on the initial flight which was cancelled 5 hours after it was supposed to depart. That time was spent in a lovely combination of siting at the gate and on the tarmac. This was a challenging time because PD makes it very difficult for me to be calm in the midst of chaos. We got through it together though.

About 5am, while at an airport hotel, we were told we had been rebooked on the first available flight to Amsterdam – on Saturday evening flight, which landed the day after the boat departed Norway. Throughout Thursday, we discussed many options but ultimately continued to try and work with Air Canada to find a solution.

Finally at about 4 pm, we had a new plan. We would fly to Frankfurt direct from Toronto, leaving at 5:40 PM , arriving Friday morning. We would take a train from Frankfurt to Amsterdam and connect to our KLM flight to Bergen, Unfortunately, our flight from Frankfurt was delayed due to “mechanical issues“. We made up the time and thought that we would catch our train, however the Frankfurt police decided to hold our plane at the tarmac for unknown security reasons. Once they left, jeff and I went as fast as we could to the train station adjacent to the airport, only to find that we missed the train by 15 minutes.

When we were redirected to Air Canada to get new train tickets, we decided to ask the AC rep whether they would put us on a flight from Frankfurt to Bergen Instead

The representative had sympathy for us and put us on a flight from Frankfurt leaving within the hour.

This meant, we had to run from terminal D to terminal A. We did this only to discover at the security checkpoint that we had two boarding passes for Jeff and none for me.  Jeff had to sprint back to back to the gate. We made the flight with eight minutes to spare.

The flight to Bergen was delayed due to an apparent dispute between the luggage handlers (which I witnessed).  It didn’t matter though – We were in Norway earlier than planned heading for a lovely hotel.

As always, i hope you enjoy the photos….

I’m in Calgary, flying home to SW Ontario in the morning. 

I don’t usually post about non-boating activities, but wanted to wrap up the boating season.  At this point my plan for next season is to arrive in NS in early April and get back at it.

All went as planned over the past week or so.  I left the boat Friday, arrived in Toronto Sunday, flew to Vancouver Monday, and spent four days driving the Rockies, with overnight stops in Kamloops, Banff, Hinton, and Canmore. 

This has been on my bucket list for a while.  Lots to see in BC, but mountains have always fascinated me.  I’ve visited alpine areas in other places, but not Canada. Now I’ve traveled the highest road in the country, at 2083m.

It was especially nice to spend a couple of days sharing the experience with son Miles and getting caught up with his life.  It’s good to get off the boat.

I felt good leaving Escapade.  Cold weather has descended on NS.  I got out just in time.  All systems are ready for storage.  No shrink wrapping yet, but I’m sure they’ll get to it.  I forgot to take pics.