Staggering through the North Sea

Today, our 2nd sea day, finds us in the North Sea sailing from the Lofoten Islands towards Lerwick on the Shetland Islands. Amazingly, the sea is calm with a few clouds and 55 degrees. The girls slept in while the guys hung out in the Explorers' Lounge.

Even though the sea is fairly calm, the ship does move some and at times we stagger down the halls feeling like a drunken sailor man (which may be where the term came from).

Since we're at sea, we thought today we'd show a few pictures of our ship, the Viking Sea.

Our rooms with balcony, table and 2 chairs outside makes for great views.

The lobby.

One of four dining rooms.

The Green's relaxing near the Wintergarden before lunch.

Bill and Karen did several laps around the ship to get some exercise to make up for all the eating that is going on.  Here is a picture of Bill's lunch - a Rachel & fries.

Karen relaxing on the sports deck while Bill brushes up on his putting.

Later in the afternoon, Bill and Karen did some laps around the ship again and then went to the spa to enjoy the jacuzzi, sauna, and the snow room. This picture is a little foggy, but Bill is in the snow room after sweating in the sauna.

Before dinner we enjoyed a tour of the galley. Unlike most cruise ships, Viking not only uses everything fresh (nothing frozen), including making all the bread, pastries and pasta daily from scratch. All 130 chefs are graduates of culinary cooking schools.

Tonight we will actually have a sunset around mid-night and sunrise around 2 am. Since we were in Norway near the top of the world, the sun never set. Guess that's why our cruise is called "Into the Midnight Sun".

11pm and the sun has begun to set...