This is fjord day. For us, a day on deck. There are two swimming pools on deck: one for swimmers and one for non-swimmers. They are filled with deliciously fresh fjord water.
The water does not taste quite as salty as “normal” sea water. Neither is it enriched with chloride – after all, it is changed every day.
For me, this is a day of extensive swimming. And mostly, I find myself all alone in the water. Hard to believe on a ship that holds many more than 1,000 guests!
The general motto seems to be more like “eating, eating, eating”, or “sun-bathing, sun-bathing, sun-bathing”, or even “buying, buying, buying”, rather than “swimming, swimming, swimming”.
The deck is truly crowded, yet the swimming pool is totally empty. I lie down on my lounge chair, contemplate the empty swimming pool and take a few pictures. Then I turn the lounge chair around by 180 degrees and admire the shores and islands on the fjord.
We are on the Boknafjord. It has a radius of 20 kilometres, and is full of islands. The most famous of these islands is Rennesøy.
We also visit the Lysefjord and hear about the fast road Rennefast. That is the European Street number 39, apparently entirely made up by underwater tunnels and bridges.
This region seems to have a very mild climate.
Geographically spoken, it is protected by the imposing fjord massifs of Preikestolen and Kjerag, which explains why fruit otherwise cultivated in Northern Germany is successfully planted here, too.
And as we glide through the fjords, I come to the conclusion that each of these fjords is something of a small microcosm of our great blue planet.
RMD
(Translated by EG)