At five o'clock we had to attend the briefing by Trygve Nygård from Glød (see below) for those going on the Northern Lights excursion.   Due to demand they had scheduled three separate tours; 8:00 until 12:00, 09:00 until 1:00 and 10:30 until 2:30.   We were on the first one.

We had our evening meal early so that we could go back to our room and get kitted up with all the layers we thought we would need. I had shorts, long johns, joggers and fleece lined waterproof trousers, with a T shirt, long sleeved shirt, woollen pullover, woollen cardigan, button up fleece and a waterproof jacket with a fleece lining.   I felt a bit like Michelin man, but I didn't get cold.   The company, Glød, running the tour use one of three possible sites according to the local weather forecast; one is out by the coast, one is just outside Alta but inland, and the third is up in the mountains, well inland.   Which is where we went, and the sky was clear there.   The other photographers were just about learning now that they should have their flash turned off, though there were still one or two inconsiderate (or thick) ones.   However some had the bright idea to walk around with a flash light playing on all the open cameras on time exposure.   In the event it didn't matter as the show was pretty poor, the lights had been displaying just before we got there, but all we had was a faint band of grey fog.   By giving a long exposure, when the flashers were not around, you could get something, but it was a bit disappointing compared with what we had seen coming out Tromso.   We were due to take our coach back at 11:00 (it was almost an hour each way), so we got on one at 10:45 which left at about 10:55.   You were able to get on any coach to come back, each coach left when it was full and the next one then came up.   We were almost back into Alta when we saw a good display from the coach, fine curtains and bright colours, but it didn't last long.   Back on ship they had laid on snacks and mulled wine, so Cruise Maritime had done all they could.   There were some further displays to be seen on board, but not any really good ones.   So we didn't achieve our photographic aim, but at least we had good views from the ship during the voyage.