Dusk at midday

The wind has kept up all night. We are protected from stormy waves only because this ship mostly travels the sounds between islands - those facing directly onto the Norwegian Sea must be having a real battering. Each time on this trip that we’ve gone into open sea, usually for no more than two hours at a time, we’ve been alerted, though the ship is so stable there’s been much less pitching and rolling than I expected.
 
The crew pin up weather forecasts and each day I check that temperatures are still being kind (the Gulf Stream means that western Norway is nothing like as cold as other places at this latitude and we haven’t yet had temperatures lower than the -7°C we experienced back home in Oxford in December) but until now I haven’t paid much attention to wind speeds. They are given in m/s which I used long ago in school maths but which I haven’t since had to equate to measurements I’m familiar with, like mph and km/h (and even a bit of the Beaufort scale). But now I want to know what 21m/s is. Another bonus of being between islands is that we are within Norway so we can get data at the same cost as in the UK (beware expensive ‘maritime’ data on ferries between the UK and France, for example) and I am very surprised when google tells me we are in a strong gale (Beaufort 9).
 
The information sessions take place regardless so this morning we head outside to hold onto the handrail while we look at the 2km-wide sound that reindeer herds swim twice a year. They migrate 200km south to escape the winter storms of Magerøya (øy  means ‘island’) then back again in spring to avoid the summer warmth and biting insects of the mainland. We’ve seen the film; it would be stunning to see them swim it for real.
 
The wind and spray buffet us and it’s not possible for the little skin that is exposed to stay outside for more than about 15 minutes. I am grateful to have the protection of glasses. If I dare get out the camera my fingers can manage about a minute before needing to retreat into ski-mitts.
 
Back inside, and the screens with a live map of our journey show two attempts to get into Honningsvåg harbour. It’s a significant enough port for us to be scheduled to stay here for 3½ hours, not because of its 2,500 population but because, as Norway’s northernmost ‘city’, it is the starting point for trips to Nordkapp, the northernmost point of Europe, if you conveniently ignore western Russia and Svalbard Island. The storm has rendered that outing too dangerous and has downgraded the hike up a local mountain that two of our group planned to do to a short walk just beyond the town where they can at least jump in the snow. B and I go out for an independent walk around the town in the strange dusky light of mid-day. Ttoday is one of our two days with no sunrise and this picture of Honningsvåg harbour was taken at 13:45.

Once the ship leaves the shelter of the harbour the deck doors are locked and we are told it is not safe to go outside. The ship is listing at 10°. At 17:00 it is too rough to dock at Kjøllefjord (population 950) and at 19:15 the boat can’t get into the harbour at Mehamn (population 740). I feel fine but there are few people in the communal areas of the ship and the kitchen staff put out food as a buffet for people to turn up for if and when they feel able. At 22:00 we fail to dock at Berlevåg (population 990). I wonder how often these small remote places don't get their scheduled service.