Of Fish and Ships

I’m currently sitting in the lounge of the ship Havila Pollux on my way to Ålesund. The ship docks in the morning but goes into Hjorundford and docks back at Ålesund in the evening about 6pm. I’ll get off then.

My run of good weather came to an end last night. It rained all night and was still raining this morning. I think for the first time in Bergen I actually wore my jacket instead of just carrying it around. It was pretty wet.
I started with some shopping then went out to the Bergen Maritime Museum. They have a very interesting exhibition on Viking boat burials. Some of the later exhibits repeated what I saw at the Oslo Maritime Museum but it was interesting nonetheless. Maybe I should have skipped over the section on the worst cruise ship wrecks though.
I then went mown to the Norwegian Fisheries Museum. Like the maritime museum it was small but informative. Bergen has been vital to the trade in stockfish (dried cod) since the 1300s. The fisheries museum was in the section of town where the wearhouses held the stockfish and it retains the smell. There was a lot of information about the Norwegian fishing industry. I hadn’t realised just how much of the Norwegian fishing industry exported is farmed. Probably all the fish I’ve eaten since I’ve been here (except the whale) was farmed.

Quick late lunch then back to the hotel to pick up my luggage and head to the Havila terminal to check in. The whole process from arriving at the terminal to setting foot on the boat was 80 minutes. Half of that was wasted standing in line for the dinner table reservations. Food isn’t included in the Port to Port tickets, you can buy a meal package but it’s basically twice my daily meal budget and it would only be for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. I had thought I could still eat i. The restaurant and just pay for what I ate but that has to be arranged with the head waiter on board. They also have a cafe on board where you can purchase meals. I had the Bergen soup and even though it was cheaper than what I paid on Sunday it was so much better. I think it was prepared by the restaurant chefs. The menu is fairly limited in terms of what I can eat but I won’t be disappointed if I have the soup for lunch again tomorrow.

The ship is fairly small compared to cruise liners. It has capacity for 460 passengers in cabins and another 170 day passengers. It’s a cross between a ferry and a cruise ship. It doesn’t seem too crowed to me. The original company is Hurtigruten and that started as a mail run to 34 ports between Bergen and Kirkenes on the Russian border. Some of the places it only stops 10-15 minutes. Others it’s stops for up to 3 hours. You can cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes in 5 - 6 days, you can also do the return trip. I originally looked at Hurtigruten but they do Norwegian and non Norwegian pricing, the non Norwegian pricing is similar to Havila. The Havila boats are much newer. They are also a Norwegian company.

Given I’m not fond of organised tours I’m doing the port to port option where you get off as you please.
Due to the mountainous terrain trains don’t go directly between towns and I don’t enjoy buses.
I’ve got an inside room, I did look into whether I should upgrade to an outside room for my next trip as that is two nights but the cost was more than double so it’s the inside room for me.

I think I’ve been all over the ship, well levels 6 - 9 anyway. I’m on level 7. Levels 8 and 9 are the outside decks and level 6 has the longest and restaurants. I’m sitting in the lounge on level 6 writing this.Read more