20260327 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 12/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 12/32 – Norway's Inside Passage

We expected to wake up to dramatic fjords out our window, but there was nothing but open ocean and a few islets. What?

Well, that explains it - we were out in the open ocean off the coast of Norway

Today was supposed to include scenic sailing of the inside passage. The error was mine. It's not for the whole day - just part of it, and we hadn't gotten to that part yet. Issue resolved. I checked our position, and we were already at roughly 64° N latitude, so we have officially left the Arctic. That meant it was time for breakfast and then Baggo.

Today, it was the officers versus the guests in a rematch of the guests getting trounced by the officers a few days ago.

Look at the fear in ShoreX Manager CJ's eyes as Arlona kills it

CJ closed his eyes to avoid seeing the inevitable scoring bag

In the end, the guests had a better day, and as always, everyone had a great time

As our day progressed, we were in and out of coastal areas on both sides of the ship. The views were quite nice, and it made for an enjoyable day of sailing.

Our trivia team fell apart, so we joined four friendly Aussies for trivia today. Once again, we tied for first at 13/15 and lost in the tiebreaker. Our failures:

• What musician played the guitar solo on Michael Jackson's Beat It?
• I was lobbying for Eddie Van Halen, but the team chose Eric Clapton - it was Eddie
• What 1927 movie is credited with the end of silent movies with synchronized dialogue and musical sequences?
• We had no idea and guessed Birth of a Nation (I missed the "musical" part of the question - it was The Jazz Singer
• The tiebreaker: How long in meters was the Titanic
• We guessed 153 meters, thinking that it was smaller than most modern cruise ships, but it was 269 meters - longer than the Viking Vela by about 30 meters

Lunch today featured Norwegian hot dogs. Neither of us was interested, so we had Philly steak (Arlona) and Thai wings (Garry) at the Pool Grill. Both the World Café and the Pool Grill were absolutely jammed with hardly a table to be found. 

In the early afternoon, we had a pilot exchange. Each local pilot has knowledge of the specific waterways they are responsible for. We have been sailing long enough through the passage that we required two pilots.

From the Explorers Bar, we could see an impressive storm off to the right of the ship.

The line where the rain started was very clearly defined

A small wind farm was in the distance - we passed several wind farms on Norway's coast

A small settlement on the island

The scenery along the inside passage was beautiful

We went to the pool deck for Viking's BBQ event.

Assistant General Manager Eric was dishing out bread pudding

Sliders, dogs, shrimp skewers, fish

Corn, brisket (a new huge one came out right after this photo), ribs, chicken, mac & cheese

Dinner was great and a nice change from the standard Viking menu. As we ate, we continued our scenic sailing as the daylight faded away.

We will be leaving this all behind overnight as we hit the open ocean to the south as we sail to the Netherlands. The ocean is already getting rougher, and the winds are increasing as I write this, as we leave the protection of the passage to enter the North Sea. We will be at sea all day again tomorrow.