Blow Hot, Blow Cold

If you've been following this blog, you'll know that -- so far at least -- it's all been about the prep. And the astonishing mountain of cold-weather clothing we've amassed in a relatively short time.

But along with that preparation, Nikki's also been following all the forums and facebook groups she can find about All Things Hurtigruten. 

One of the messages that has come through loud and clear from many posts, is how warm it is aboard ship. Naturally the crew of MS Maud want everyone to be comfortable while they're eating, drinking, or listening to those fascinating lectures, and no-one wants to be wearing a fleece-lined Mr Staypuft jacket while they're tucking into their jacket potato. There's even been talk of passengers having to abandon the idea of drying their socks out overnight on the bathroom floor, because their cabin has simply become too hot to sleep in.

It was bad enough thinking about packing all this extra cold-weather gear (we are, or have been up to now, exclusively hot-weather holidayers). Now we have to think about "warm weather gear" for indoors too. It's really starting to make our heads spin. 

Fortunately there's no dress code on the MS Maud. No-one gives a flying... er... fish what we wear. Amen to that.

Photo Call

Since we first discussed this trip, we've both assumed we'll be using our phones to take all the pictures. The arguments for that are well-known to everyone. They're always with us, take hardly any space, the cameras are reasonable (something like 12 Megapixels now, if I remember right), and part of the instruction we receive on the expedition includes how to dive into the settings and get the camera set up properly to take decent shots of the night-time sky, including the Northern Lights.

Another great attraction is how easy it'll be to post those photos as we go. WiFi is good, apparently, on the MS Maud, so we planned to keep this blog and our facebook feeds constantly updated with how things are going.

But there was always this niggling doubt at the back of Nikki's mind about whether phone pix will really record this once-in-a-lifetime trip well enough. If nothing else, it was a good excuse to buy a new camera. And a USB-C connectable SD card reader. 

Star Gazing, and now... Star Linking

Although we're not planning to spend much of our time on this expedition with our faces buried in our tablets - even when the sky isn't filled with Northern Lights, we're expecting spectacular views of the Milky Way which will keep us enthralled most nights - it is nevertheless nice to know we'll be able to keep in touch with friends and family with the on-board WiFi, and post pictures as we go.

So we were very excited to read the latest press release from Hurtigruten Expeditions, describing the completion of their fleetwide installation of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband service. An "industry first", apparently, and mentioned alongside comforting terms like high-speed and low-latency.

Working in cooperation with their long-term connectivity partner Speedcast, the installation will be complete by the end of the month. My first reaction to the news was that any teething problems should be sorted out long before January.

But reading further through the article, it turns out they've been testing the onboard systems since March, so I imaging the concept of "teething problems" is long behind us, and our connections for the duration of the trip will be rock solid. Or whatever the appropriate metaphor is when you're in the North Sea.

Fiery Fingers

As you'll know if you've read our other posts, we don't normally do cold. One of the biggest conundrums we've faced in the prep for this trip has been deciding exactly how cold it'll be, and how much we need to do about it.

One thing we do agree on: we don't want to have cold hands. OK, we already sorted out some non-slip gloves, but is that enough? I know what it's like to drive off on a cold morning and hardly be able to hold on to the steering wheel for the cold. Gloves never really helped me then, and now we're talking about spending hours outdoors, in sub-zero temperatures, while needing to hold on to the gunnel of a RIB boat, or the railings along the edge of the steps up to a mountain top, or... well, you get the idea.

So Nikki's invested in a few of these. Little Hotties. Mix the chemicals, stick 'em in your pocket, and away you go. Or at least, you do after ~20 minutes. By that time, once they've properly got going, they'll have reached 74°C according to the packet.

If they really do last 8 hours we'll be fine for the whole of whatever excursion we're taking that day. Even the coldest ones.

All Paid Up

We're still about a week away from the "drop dead date" when we had to pay the balance owing on the expedition. But it's a large amount, so we didn't want to leave it until the last minute in case of accidents. Some unforeseen glitch like hitting the credit card limit, or being limited to 5,000 shekels per transaction, or something. We don't part with sums of money like this very often, so for the second time in as many days, the axiom "better safe than sorry" was deployed.

It went through without a hitch. Or a glitch for that matter. *gulp*

Haven't actually paid it, of course. It's on the credit card, and I won't have to settle that bill for another month or thereabouts. Still, you know. One step closer to that gang plank.

Anti-C

It's been a little quiet in here of late, during our three-week jaunt to Greece, but we're back now and preparations for our expedition are continuing. 

I hear people saying "Covid is over" and "it's time to move on."

Well it isn't over, and you can move on if you like, but I know folk are still catching it, even though vaccinated, and in some cases they're still suffering with it. Perhaps more to the point, for this blog, is that people are still catching it on board ship. Nikki's keeping up with the various blogs, forums, and facebook groups associated with the trip, the boat, and the company, and knows this for a fact.

Hurtigruten's anti-Covid measures are pretty strict, especially before you board. Once you're aboard, clearly they want to minimise the chances of other passengers catching it and having their holiday compromised.

So to manage our risk in the run up to our departure date, we'll be in a kind of self-imposed lockdown. I've declined invites to two Christmas "dos" and I'll be swerving my monthly "curry club" meeting at the beginning of January.

But once we're on the ship, there's not much we can do to avoid coming into contact with it. Apart from returning to 2020 levels of "masking." So we're ready for that too.

Exactly how many of these we take with us will depend on the latest state of play in the 10-14 days before we leave home. 

Better safe than sorry, as my old Nan used to say.