2023-36: Tromsø, Norway (Part 6)

This travel update is part six of our two-week stay in Tromsø, Norway. It covers August 12 – 13. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

August 12, 2023 – Saturday: Patti’s Niece

Here’s an interesting situation. By a wild stroke of coincidence Patti’s niece, Callie, is doing a WWOOF on a farm about 40 miles from where we’re staying now in Tromsø, Norway. We didn’t know she would be in Norway, and she didn’t know we would be here. Patti found out by seeing her post on Instagram and then reading her newsletter on Substack. We reached out to her, and she has this weekend off so she’s coming into Tromsø and we’re going to spend some time with her.

Here’s what WWOOF is:

“Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, Norway (WWOOF Norway) is part of a worldwide effort to link visitors with organic farmers, promote an educational exchange, and build a global community conscious of ecological farming practices. Volunteers (WWOOFers) visit small scale farms where families and collectives (hosts) live and work. WWOOFers help with farm work while sharing in the daily routines of the hosts who offer them room and board.”

Callie also publishes a newsletter on the service called Substack. Here’s what that is:

“Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. Founded in 2017, Substack is headquartered in San Francisco.”

If you’re interested you can find Callie’s latest newsletter here.

The Journey to the Farm – by Callie Forsythe (substack.com)

Today we walked into town and met Callie at the cathedral. She took a bus from the farm this morning. We walked around town some then got lunch at a nice place by the water where Callie and I both got the Bacalau and Patti got a burger. The waitress took our picture.

I had Bacalau in Portugal last year because it’s a traditional Portuguese dish, but the Norwegians have their own versions of it. In Portugal it’s basically dried and salted cod that is prepared in various ways. Originally it was a way for Portuguese sailing vessels of the 1400s to carry non-perishable food. I like the Norwegian versions better because they aren’t as salty and the cod is fresh.

It was nice to get to know Callie. She’s 25 years old and is taking some time off from her design and architecture career in New York City to do some traveling by WWOOFing. Norway is her first WWOOF then she’ll be doing one in Italy then one in Greece. I share her belief that traveling is a good way to experience more of the world and open the mind.

We wandered around town, then went by our Airbnb to drop stuff off, then went for a long walk around the town and the southern half of the island. This is what Google Maps timeline shows for our walk today. I think we went about 10 miles.

On the way we went by this pretty harbor where I was interested to see the research vessel “Helmer Hansen” which is the far-right vessel in this picture.

“The R/V “Helmer Hanssen” is a multipurpose vessel, designed for fishery and marine biological, geological and oceanographic surveys in open and ice covered waters (1-2 m drift ice). The range of investigations include fish resource assessments, hydrographic and trawl surveys, geological bottom sediment sampling and acoustic registrations of the sediment layers below the seabed. R/V “Helmer Hanssen” is equipped with modern instruments and has especially designed features for improved acoustic surveying and bottom sediment sampling.”

If I could start over with another life, I think I might like to work on a marine research vessel like the “Helmer Hanssen”. Marine Science has always interested me.

We invited Callie to spend the night with us, so, when we got close to our Airbnb, we went into the Eurospar grocery and got provisions for supper. I chose some frozen Chicken Tikka Masala and Callie got some fish burgers and buns. Patti had her usual dessert treat(s).

After arriving back at our Airbnb, we had supper and accomplished our evening routines with teeth brushings, showers, etc. Fortuitously, this Airbnb has two bedrooms and Patti made up the bed in the second bedroom after we moved our suitcases so Callie had a comfortable place to sleep.

August 13, 2023 – Sunday: A Fjord Boat Cruise

Earlier this week Callie told us she booked a fjord boat cruise for Sunday. We wanted to tag along, so we booked the same cruise on “GetYourGuide”. FYI:

“GetYourGuide is a Berlin-based online travel agency and online marketplace for tour guides and excursions. It is accessible via website and mobile app for iOS and Android. GetYourGuide sells tours and excursions, activities including cooking classes, and tickets to tourist attractions. It offers more than 60,000 products worldwide in 150 countries, 22 languages, and 40 currencies.”

This morning after breakfast and coffee, we walked to the meeting spot for the cruise. I forgot to get a picture of the boat but here’s a picture of it that I found online. We had 28 passengers and 4 crew on the boat.

Here’s our Google Maps timeline of the trip. We were on three different fjords today.

Here’s Patti and Callie on the boat in the marina, with the cinnamon rolls/buns that they got on the way. They share a passion for cinnamon buns. Patti seems to eat one about every other day.

And here are the three of us after we got out into the fjord.

There were a lot of nice fjord views, of course. The weather was very nice, in fact one of the crew told us that today was one of the best weather days of the year. There are houses all along the fjords here like this one.

We stopped at this area to fish. I didn’t catch anything but several other people on the boat caught cod. It was about 50 meters deep here, only about 200 yards from shore. I think the sides of the fjords slope steeply.

There were a lot of farms along the fjord with green fields and hay bales wrapped in white plastic.

The captain took us close to the entrance to a Norwegian submarine base.

What an interesting story this is!

“During the Cold War, Norway wanted a secret naval base within the Arctic Circle. The base was essentially carved into a mountain just outside the city of Tromsø. It is a massive complex constructed at a cost of 4 billion Kroner burrowed into a mountain. It lost its status as an Orlogsstasjon (navy base) in 2002 and was consequently closed down in 2009 by the government of Jens Stoltenberg. The base has an inside surface of 25,000 square metres (270,000 sq ft) beneath 274 metres (899 ft) of hard rock, including 13,000 square metres (140,000 sq ft) of housing, and 3,000 square metres (32,000 sq ft) of deep-water dock. In one of the mountain halls, there is a dry dock for submarines. The internal dry dock is capable of accommodating 6 submarines simultaneously. The base further consists of a 340-metre-long (1,120 ft) dry dock, workshops, offices and ammunition depots. The base also has external docks capable of accommodating larger ships, among other US Navy SSN’s and SSBN’s. The entrance to the facilities consist of a tunnel that is more than 900 metres (3,000 ft) long.”

I really wish I could go on a tour of this submarine base!

Close to the submarine base we did some more fishing and this kid caught another cod. The captain brought his two dogs on the boat and they like tugging on the tails of the live cod.

Before lunch this crew member gave us a lesson on how to filet a cod.

Here he is holding the liver.

He showed us how to cut out the tongue of the cod and told us that cod tongue is a highly-prized delicacy. He said he started working when he was 6 years old cutting out cod tongues.

Before long lunch was served, we had bread and butter and fresh fish soup. Really fresh!

The final event of the cruise was when one of the crew threw dead fish into the water and three different white-tailed eagles came by the boat and snatched the fish out of the water next to the boat. I did get a few pictures of the eagles but these from the internet are better.

It’s a neat-looking bird. I think they wait for the boat and fly out from their eyrie on the mountain when they see the boat because this is a common occurrence with the tourist boats feeding them.

After the eagle feeding, the captain headed us back to the marina. On the way I took this picture of the three dried fish heads that hang from one of the spars. The closest fish, with the teeth that look like they came from a canine, is called a Wolf Fish.