Stavanger

This is a very sociable voyage. The maître d’ appeared at breakfast to welcome TSH and Diva and some of the new best friends have issued an invitation to dine with them. The shore concierge, who is from the Wirral, wants to meet them ‘for a pint’.

The afternoon was spent touring Stavanger. No monkey and plywood violin (try Google) but in the old town there was a sculpture featuring a monkey, a saxophone, a parrot and a top hat. A visit to an Iron Age settlement included sitting inside a Long House, hearing about the hard life they had. Specifically, how they made garments, which involved spinning thousands of miles of yarn, weaving and then dyeing. Some colours were more difficult, and hence more in demand, than others. Blue was special but needed a lot of bodily fluids, obtained by throwing a party and providing lots of beer. Purple was the best and richest, which fits with it being Diva’s favourite.

The petroleum museum, a fantastic building partly built of granite and part of which looks like an oil storage tank, needed much more time than was allocated. There were displays of all the elements of the oil industry including scale models of rigs, life rafts, a diving bell and drill bits.

Dinner was arctic chard (TSH) and lobster (Diva). TSH started with one of his favourites – artichoke assiette.

No trains, whales, eagles or dragons yet.

Two doctors

There were two doctors. The one who looks after any sick passengers or crew – TSH and Diva thought he was even more brutalised than most  (Diva has a medical phobia). So absolutely no plans to be ill. The other was an orthopaedic surgeon who lived in Brisbane but originally studied at Liverpool University, like Diva did.

The Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland was too choppy for Tai Chi but nothing like the early part of the voyage. Early on Saturday, exactly one day late, the coast of Greenland came into view. Snow-capped mountains. New territory, just as the early explorers saw. But their vessel was nothing like the Silver Whisper.  The Arctic Chard (TSH) and fragrant lamb curry (Diva) were especially good last night.