Well, nearly dark. I’m still above the arctic circle and its doing its best to get dark but not quite succeeding, its just before midnight and there is still light in the sky.

I’m now into phase 2 of this realising of dreams, on the Nordlys, a Hurtigruten ferry – one of the ones which ply up and down the coast of Norway every single day. Its huge compared with the Sea Spirit but still not that big – less than 600 passengers max. But its lovely, in a completely different way. I arrived stressed out as the plane from Longyearbyen was late and the transfer didn’t turn up, but a taxi got me here. The girl on reception who checked me in wasn’t helpful or even interested and I struggled up to find my room….cabin….oh no, actually according to the room blurb it’s a stateroom….which, after Sea Spirit is very definitely basic, stateroom or no – no mirrored walls or wood panelling or living area or any of that but, hey, its got everything I need and a nice bathroom and its good and solid and clean. I unpacked and decided to explore the ship and found lovely places to sit and stare at the sea with sundeck and sunloungers, on deck jacuzzis, big comfy sofas behind glass to keep the wind off you, nice tables and chairs by the windows and a bar right up on the top deck at the front of the ship with lovely comfy easy chairs right in front of the windows, you can even prop your feet up on the windowsill in front of you as you gaze out at the mountains. I celebrated with a gin!

And its fabulous – we seem to glide elegantly among the mountains on either side, sea flat calm, as we wend our way among the inlets and islands out to sea – we’re only just now reaching open sea 5 hours after leaving Tromso.

Said goodbye to the rest of the Franz Josef Land group – I’ve enjoyed the company of many of them but am feeling very relieved to escape the whole group thing and to have this week to assimilate, and to reflect on and just revel in, my experiences of the last 2 weeks before returning home to take the next step in my life.