An entry from Norway - Aurora Cruise journal, by Helen Tanhaie
The wake up alarm went off at 0800 which started my day on land without any sound of the ships engine. I went down to the restaurant for breakfast in slow motion enjoying the novelty of the floor not pitching and rolling anymore. All the elderly travellers were hobbling and swaying in a slow dance as they migrated down stairs, I had no choice other than to go with their very slow flow, eventually getting to the buffet breakfast, where moving around just got even more risky. The buffet was a sea of unsteady elderly people randomly bouncing from one buffet station to the next in a dance of worry of what to select form the infinite display of choice, their decision making was as slow as their legs. Trying to navigate this sea of silver heads was a challenge that even the best Hurtigruten Ship’s Captain would struggle with sailing through the Norwegian fjords on a stormy day. I eventually had a giant breakfast in spite of the moth balled silver headed obstacles.
I left the hotel around 1000 to start my exploration of Tromsø starting with a stroll along the quay towards the bridge then up to the main high street. The crust of snow still lay firmly attached to the pavement but had been speckled with grit so that walking was easier. The town was busy compared to most Norwegian towns in the north. I found my way to the Polaria, an arctic themed museum, which contained a panoramic movie of the aurora borealis and a pool with live seals. The seals were amazing as they swam around their surprisingly small indoor pool. They would pop their heads above the surface and stare at you with their cute dark eyes. After Polaria, I stopped at a coffee shop called knoll oh tott on the high street to have a drink and cake to warm up. Recharged and nourished, I marched off to the bridge which was the main gateway to the island on which Tromsø is based. It is a long bridge and quite high at its mid-point offering great view of the port in Tromsø and the Arctic Cathedral on the mainland. By the time I had photographed the cathedral it was time to walk back across the bridge and find a place to have an early dinner or rather a late lunch, as the night was going to be busy and active chasing the Aurora in the Tromsø hinterland. I found a really nice bar restaurant, called Kaia Bar & Restaurant, just next to the quay near the Radisson Blu hotel which had a view out over the port, Tromsø bridge and the Arctic Cathedral on the mainland.
I ordered cod wrapped in bacon, cabbage stew, peas and new potatoes and a glass of wine, it was so relaxing to sit, eat and look over the sea as the sun slowly set from its shallow elevation. It seemed as if the daylight slowly handed over the city to the street lights, house lights and lanterns changing the entire feel of city like a Thomas Kinkade painting. Every house seemed to have taken on a civic duty of having a light in each window and outside lanterns to give the city a warm and seasonal glow at night. At night Tromsø is a different world to the world of day which must be amazing during the height of winter with no daylight whatsoever.
I boarded the coach at the hotel at 1830 as planned to start our Aurora safari base station adventure. I was wrapped up with a million layers and camera ready like a western gunslinger. We drove across the bridge onto the mainland and took the E8 south and then looped back north east to escape Thomas Kinkade's light pollution. We were no sooner out in the hinterland when one of the passengers yelled lights! The buzz of excitement propagated through the coach like a Mexican wave and the guide spoke over the speaker and informed us that we would pull up in a few minutes for a short stop to see the lights. When we finally pulled in and disembarked the coach, our eyes opened to the darkness of the sky and dim glowing green of the Aurora dancing over the pin point lights of a distant town and grey white of its over bearing snow covered mountain.
Apprehensive about the large number of buttons, controls and displays festooned all around each side of my Cannon 60D, I mounted my camera on its tripod. I had acquired it over a year ago and had even read through the manual but I still was not comfortable to enough to drive this beast effectively, especially in low light and freezing conditions. The call of the Aurora drove me on and soon the camera was mounted, pointed and switched on. I had tumbled to set the aperture to its maximum and set the exposure to 10 seconds, I then pushed the shutter button, the silence seemed to drag on for an eternity before the click of the shutter closed again. The image appeared on the LCD showing just a black screen! Panic ensued for a second before I realised I had made that most of common of errors and left the lens cap on. This was rapidly corrected and another exposure was taken, after what felt like the longest 10 second wait in my life the image was delivered to my screen. It was the most amazing picture, not because of its beautiful colour, or the amazing swirls of the vertical rays of atomic emissions in the sky or even the back drop of the stars so far away at distances unimaginable. It was amazing because it justified the huge cost of the trip, the camera the cold and all the effort to be here. This was it, this image made it all worthwhile. With my new confidence in being the master of my camera, more images were acquired and my new problem was to make sure I had enough space left on my memory chip to last the night.
We drove further into the isolated regions of northern Norway as the coach wound its way through mountain valleys over heavily gritted roads. Eventually we reached the furthest point of our journey and made another stop to acquire more sightings of the lights. The lights were still visible but this time disappointing, not because they we dim but because they had not surpassed the last viewing session. Nevertheless, I took more photos before we started our return journey to the hotel. On the way back I started to delete images from my camera that did not meet my criteria. Then we made one last final stop not far outside Tromsø, I was tired and ready for bed, it was already midnight and I was satisfied with the images I already had on my camera. Just as I turned around to walk back to the coach the group started make strange noises "ooh", "wow wow"! I looked round and everybody was looking skyward, I followed their gaze and there it was the most amazing aurora I had ever seen. It was moving, no it was dancing or shooting, almost like it was choreographed to Handel’s firework music. Flashes of bright green shades moving along swathes of dimmer green ribbons and then when I thought it could not get any better, a corona right above my head appeared with streaks of thunderbolt like flashes descending 360 degrees around me, like a green tomato colliding on the celestial sphere. I no longer remembered to breath, I was immune from the cold and alone in the sky; my duty to drive my camera was the only thing that kept me on Earth. My memory chip was soon filled and we were all on the coach weaving our way back to the hotel, eyes heavy with exhaustion but heart thumping with satisfaction. I slumped into my bed around 0130.