19.08.2023 The Flight to Nome Alaska and finally Boarding our ship the Roald Amundsen

 Suitcases and our selves in the lobby of the Wall Centre Hotel at 07:45am. We were on the 16th floor, lovely views from the window. Cases loaded on Green Coach 1, Passengers loaded on Green Coach 1, and off to the airport. No major technical hitches getting through security, just the pain of taking our shoes off and getting computers out of our carry on bags again.

Hurtigruten had chartered 3 planes to get us all to Nome. We are on the 3rd charter flight to Nome.  Lovely spacious seat on the plane. It is a smallish plane a little over 100 seats. Lovely air crew, who were very helpful and give us the information we asked for, so that I can keep my milage up to date in my Passport. Laurie (Air Crew) took a picture of us all on the plane. Morgan and I enjoyed watching the world go by through the window. It was sunny above the clouds and the Mountains that penetrated above the clouds were amazing. We are sure we saw Denali the biggest mountain in Alaska. Some people still Call it Mt. McKinley. Denali is its name given to it by the first settlers of the land. Its Peak covered in Snow year round.

The plane stopped at Anchorage for about half an hour for a crew change, and fuel. It is 3hrs to Anchorage then another hour to Nome. During the flight we had at least 3 lots of refreshments served, but Morgan and I were more interested in looking out of the window. What a difference when we came back through the clouds to land in Nome. It was dull and wet and miserable. We had to go down steps onto the tarmac, so the Missus put me in my bag so I didn't get wet. It was constant drizzle. We walked through the  Terminal building to be greeted by three old yellow school buses to take us to the Ship. It was muddy from the bus to the ship and then we went upstairs into the ship and another busy time began.

Our cases were taken to our cabins, and our carry on luggage was scanned. Then there was a check-in desk and they took our Passports. This is for when we go back into Canadian territory, and also a Customs form to fill in. We were given a card to wear on a lanyard all the time. It is the key to our cabin and also for checking us off and on the ship for Expeditions and Excursions. Then we went  down to deck 6 to get our nice Red Waterproof jackets. Master and Missus were smart, they put on a jumper and and their insulated jackets, so that they could get a coat big enough to go over both. We get to keep these. We had to get the Customs Document back to Reception by 18.30, and we had to attend a safety briefing at 19.30. We were so tired by then it wasn't long before we went to bed. We did unpack first though. We  met Ricky our cabin Steward. He was very helpful. He told us we were entitled to having a bag of washing done every day. Wow, that's service!

We all fell into bed after the safety briefing. The Ship sailed at about 20.00, Sea calm fortunately, quite soporific. Slept quite well, another busy day tomorrow. Also see if we can get the app to work on the Missus's phone, as we need to use it for almost everything we need on board. Master has managed to get it working on his phone, Missus is annoyed! Tee Hee!

Us on the flight to Nome.

At times there was a squabble for viewing rights!