20260320 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 5/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 5/32 – Sailing the North and Norwegian Seas

The ship rocked us to sleep last night. Overnight, the weather calmed, and we awoke to calmer seas and clearer skies. We rolled out of bed after 8:00 and didn't make it up to the World Café until about 9:00 for breakfast. One thing we have noticed with this ship redesign with more passengers is that the World Café is noticeably more crowded. That is due, in part, to the fact that many of our Viking Ocean cruises have been at 50% - 75% capacity and we're sailing with 952/998, or 95% full. Whatever the reason, the World Café is jammed and extremely noisy.

We tried Viking's new biscuits and sausage gravy - it got two thumbs up from us

We got another pleasant surprise in the World Café today when we rounded a corner and ran smack into Elard, a head waiter from our 2021-2022 world cruise. It's getting to be like old home week here on the Vela.

This morning was packed with activities. We attended John Maclean's lecture on the mythology and science of the Aurora Borealis. John is a witty, Scottish astrophysicist, and his presentation was lighthearted and enjoyable.

Next up was a Viking scavenger hunt at 11:00. We've done one before and figured that with all our nights on Viking, we would make quick work of it. Well, that's what we thought.

Wow, these were obscure

We eventually found all but one, and also got all the bonus videos. Another team finished before us and scored all 14 points for the win. It was fun hunting for everything, and it is a great exercise for newer cruises to get familiar with the ship.

That led into trivia at 12:15. We paired up with nice couples from England and Rochester, New York. We tied for first with 12/15 correct answers. Our misses:

• How many musical notes are in an octave?
• We guessed 8 - "Oct", and Do-Re-Me... - nope, it's 12, 7 notes and 5 sharps/flats, 8 notes make a scale
• Which ancient culture invented toothpaste by grinding ox hooves?
• We guessed the Romans, but it was the Egyptians
• What is the most common bird in the world?
• We thought of birding and guessed crows (sparrows are actually more numerous), but the right answer was chickens - duh

That meant a tiebreaker - the closest team will win. How many stars are on Brazil's flag? We guessed 11. The other guesses were 5, 10, and 12.  The correct answer was 27. The funny thing was that if you added all four teams' answers together, our aggregate sum of 38 was closer than any of the individual answers. Ha! We still had a strong second-place finish.

We got salads for lunch in the World Café before looking around at the scenery.

The rugged Norwegian coast

We sailed very close to shore at points

As promised a couple of days ago, here's a look at our room. We are in room 5075, a Deluxe Veranda (DV2) room. We are on the starboard (right) side, just forward of the rear elevators.

That first door on the left is the bathroom door

A typical Viking Veranda / Deluxe Veranda bathroom with a heated fog-free mirror, drawer, and shelf storage on both sides of the sink

The generously-sized shower that real adults can use

The control for Viking's standard heated bathroom floor and the 110V shaver outlet

Just past the bathroom, the security safe cabinet, and three storage drawers - the first shelf usually has a coffee maker, but we asked for that to be removed

Around the corner, we see the closet with three shelves on the left side and a full-length space on the right - you can also see the side storage table that sits on both sides of the bed

Each table has a thin drawer, a shelf, a USB-C port, a USB-A port, a 110V outlet, and a 220V European outlet - room light and night foot light switches are mounted above each side table

The king bed (can be split into two twins) dominates the space - the larger room size on Vela allows for a love seat versus the side chairs on smaller Viking Ocean vessels

The work desk is on the left, as is the large, flat screen TV - the walls are magnetic, so we bring magnets to hold small items like hats

The desk lamp has one USB-C port and three USB-A ports available for charging devices

The desk holds the QuietVox listening devices used on most excursions - there is also a spare 220V European outlet and two 110V outlets available - those are my cords in the 110V outlets

The veranda is noticeably deeper and now supports two reclining chairs versus the non-reclining chairs on smaller Viking Ocean ships

We like the fact that the rooms are very familiar, but have some newer, nice touches.

Several birds that appeared to be the endangered black-legged kittiwakes were flying around as we sailed.

After letting lunch digest a bit, we went down to the gym. Arlona did 20 minutes on the rowing machine and then walked a mile on the deck. I worked the weight machines and did a short walk on the deck.

Looking ahead, we saw a teeny, tiny gap - we aren't heading there, are we?

Looking backward, it was obvious that we were turning in that direction

As we head north, we're seeing more snow in the mountains

We are indeed heading for that gap

There is perhaps one ship's width between us and the rocks

Extra eyes on the side navigation bridge

Shooting the gap

A troll-sized lighthouse

Buried cables

The scenery keeps getting prettier as we continue north.

We showered and headed up to the Explorer's Bar. As we sat there, as 5:00 pm approached, throngs of guests started piling in. We talked with another guest, and apparently, Captain Olav made an announcement while we were in the shower. It involved passing something he called the "hole-in-the-wall" or something like that.

Our reliable assistant, Google Gemini, filled in the details. Captain Olav was talking about Torghatten, a 115-foot-high stone formation with a natural tunnel cut through the stone.  According to legend, a troll named Hestmannen (The Horseman) was chasing a beautiful maiden named Lekamøya. Realizing he couldn't catch her, he fired an arrow at her in a fit of rage. The Troll-King of Sømna saw this and threw his hat into the arrow’s path to protect her. The arrow pierced the hat, creating the hole. Just then, the sun rose. As we all know, trolls turn to stone in sunlight—the hat became the mountain, and the arrow hole remained forever.

The tunnel is in the large, dark area in the center of the stone

Coming alongside, you can just see the light peeking through the center

A crappy zoomed-in cellphone capture of the tunnel

After passing Torghatten, we headed out into the open water to continue our journey north.

Our trip from Bergen so far - Captain Olav is cruising fast to get ahead of the incoming weather

We will dock early tomorrow evening in Alta, also visible near the top of the map. This will put us in port at least half a day early. We are expecting rougher seas starting around 8:00 tonight. Sounds like good sleeping to me.

We enjoyed a nice dinner in the World Café. Without a special meal, guests were spread out between The Restaurant, Manfredi's, Chef's Table, Room Service, and the World Café. That made for a nice, quiet, uncrowded dinner.

After dinner, we returned to the room and watched the port talk for Tromsø. We planned to watch tonight's movie under the stars on the pool deck, The 12th Man. We discovered that the movie is available on demand in our stateroom. We figured that we would be more comfortable in our stateroom than in pool chaises under the glass roof on the pool deck. Arlona ran up, grabbed some popcorn, and returned to the room. We sipped Moscato, ate popcorn, and enjoyed the movie in comfort.

Tomorrow is another sea day before we dock in Alta, Norway.