June 25 – AT SEA, Cruising the Norwegian Sea

ice water bath

official Bluenoses!

Weather – 10º, sunny skys

Steps – 7,776

Today was all about crossing the ARTIC CIRCLE!!! We actually will cross tonight around 1AM, but the ceremony marking the crossing was held in the morning.  We aren’t stepping onto land inside the Arctic Circle, but sailing will have to count as being here. The Bluenose ceremony was nearly identical to the one for crossing the equator, except for the weather.

Speaking of the weather…it was quite lovely. The pool deck, while open to the sky, is surrounded by glass walls that can heat things up on hot days, but that make things

pleasant when the temps are Artic-like.

Anyway…the Bluenose ceremony consisted of us having a ladle of ice-cold water poured on our heads, taking a shot of aquavit and having our noses coloured blue…silly, but fun! This is actually more civilized than the equator ceremony which is more of a submersion that a sprinkling.

Next, we were off to BINGO! Unfortunately, I kept my winless streak from the last time I played BINGO alive – Chris didn’t win either. BINGO was

Thor ushering us across

pretty well attended – there were 4 games, the last with a bonus, each pot being over $100. This is a good way of spending our ample ship-board credit.

All of this morning activity worked up our appetites, so we were off to the pool deck for lunch. We historically have avoided the pool deck buffet for lunch, but this ship has things a bit more spread out and a lot of the things you can get inside are available outside. It was packed inside today, so outside was nice. And really, it’s

BINGO photo bomber

not exactly outside…it’s mostly covered and has heat lamps.

Dinner tonight was with the ship’s cruise director, a guy from Vancouver and a couple from the US – interesting conversation.

The show was a Queen/Freddie Mercury tribute show…it was really good.

We turned the clocks before going to bed, which is for me the best of all nights!!