Whale Watching
Today was a big day with two long activities planned, each about 8–9 hours. Our first one was whale watching. We meant to get to the boat 30 minutes early, but thanks to my slow morning pace and a small parking hiccup, we arrived about 15 minutes early instead. By then, the boat was already quite full, so we ended up sharing a table with another couple.
Our 3-hour boat ride began. Since we woke up at 6:30am (5:30am UK time…), I caught up on some sleep on the way. After some nap and a bit of a movie, we reached the whale-watching area. At first, we didn’t see anything, and I started worrying that we’d travelled all this way just to stare at empty ocean. But suddenly the tour guide shouted, “12 o’clock!” Everyone rushed to the front of the boat, and we spotted some orca whale fins in the distance. Game on.
She kept yelling “3 o’clock!” “9 o’clock!”, and we kept running around the boat trying to face the right direction as fast as possible—while also trying not to slip on the very wet floor. Some whales splashed water and lifted their flukes high, giving us an amazing show. Antoine was sprinting around with his heavy camera like he was shooting a National Geographic documentary.
Near the end of the tour, a few humpback whales came very close to our boat and swam around us. We were incredibly lucky—everyone on board was buzzing, and even the tour guide was screaming with excitement. They said it’s rare to see them this close. To top it off, we saw three different species: orca, humpback, and fin whale. Apparently, seeing all three in one day is quite rare too. We ended the whale watching on a high note and began the 3-hour journey back.
On the way back, we learned a few fun whale facts. Apparently each whale’s fluke (tail) pattern is unique, like a fingerprint. There’s even a website called Happy Whale where you can upload your fluke photos, and if your whale hasn’t been identified before, you get the chance to name it. Antoine got excited and uploaded his fluke pictures. But it turns out naming rights require a minimum $500 donation… so he did not get to name a whale. Maybe one day, if we win the lottery.
Northern Light Hunt
We got back to the city after our 9-hour adventure, and it was time for our next activity: the northern light hunt. It was snowing heavily and very cloudy, so the tour company emailed us saying we’d likely be driving far—possibly all the way to Finland—to find clearer skies. When we went to our car to move to the next meeting point, it was completely covered in snow. Antoine was nervous driving in heavy snow, but as Kelly Clarkson says, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. He survived, so he’s officially stronger now.
We met the group, got on our minibus, and immediately fell asleep as we were quite tired from whale watching. After about 3.5 hours of driving, we crossed the border into Finland and reached our viewing spot. Unfortunately, it was still cloudy and we couldn’t see the aurora. Our guide started a small campfire and suggested we wait for conditions to improve.
Nearby, there was a suspension bridge that sits right on the Finland–Sweden border. We crossed it and stepped onto Swedish land. I had never been to Finland or Sweden before, so technically I managed to visit two new countries in one night. A very efficient form of tourism, I would say. I got to step up my game if I ever aspire to beat Antoine’s number of countries visited.
We gathered around the fire with hot chocolate, waiting for the aurora to appear. But unfortunately, we couldn’t see anything other than clouds. Eventually the cloud cleared a bit, and the guide even drove us back to another area to try again, but we still didn’t see much. It was disappointing, but that’s nature—you can’t exactly negotiate with the sky. At least we got some nice professional photos in the snow, since they were included in the tour.
We completely passed out on the drive back to Tromso. When we arrived at 2:30am, we were exhausted and ready to collapse into bed. But of course, there was one final challenge left. The parking lot outside our Airbnb was buried in snow, and our car got completely stuck. We couldn’t move forward or backward because the wheels were spinning in place. We ended up manually clearing snow with our scraper and somehow managed to free the car. We gave up on the parking lot and settled for street parking instead. And finally, we called it a day.