• Escape the Heat (August ‘26)
    The Vadsø waterfront.
    The Vadsø waterfront.This church, the fourth one in Vadsø, was built in 1958.The marina in Vadsø.2Glimpse of Vadsø.Kittiwakes roosting on the roof of this industrial building in Vadsø.1An industrial facility as we leave Vadsø.From the photos I've seen, the mast in Vadsø is not much different from this one in Ny-Ålesund.

    NB Day 7: Vadsø

    August 14 in Norway ⋅ ⛅ 50 °F

    We had three short stops this morning before arriving in Kirkenes … our turnaround port.

    Two of them were in the wee hours of the morning … though some might consider midnight the wee hours of the night. Anyway, they were Båtsfjord and Vardø. We were fast asleep at the time.

    The timing for Vadsø, what I consider the last port of the northbound leg of the BKB voyage, was at the more reasonable hour of 6:55a. The ship does not stop there on the southbound leg, so we went up on deck 9 to take a peek at what we could see from the ship.

    An interesting tidbit for polar aficionados … Norge and Italia, two airships that were used for North Pole expeditions by Amundsen and Nobile, launched from here to Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard to begin their historic tanspolar journeys in 1926 and 1928. Apparently, Nobile built a mast here … to which both dirigibles were tethered. Since we saw the corresponding mast in Ny-Ålesund in 2011, it would have been fun to see this one as well. Alas, we were on the starboard side enjoying the city views at the time.    Read more