The snow was pouring down, thick, wet snowflakes fell heavily on the ground.
We did go out on a boat trip to search for the orca one last time before we had to head home to Denmark.
On the way out, still in the harbour, we saw an eagle that probably gave up flying for the day due to bad weather
Unfortunately, today was a very dark and very windy day, as you can see on this picture:-)
...and the visibility was very poor, so we didn't find the orca at all.
But we found some eagles instead, white tailed eagles.
And seagulls...lots of seagulls:
We were treated with the fantastic sight of them grabbing fish from the water.
What an amazing creature! It is huge and yet it can still turn 180 degrees in the air in a split second if something catches the eye.
The eagles were circling around us, looking at us, and all of a sudden they just dived toward the water and grabbed a fish. Amazing!
The light was almost gone, but I managed to get a few pictures that worked a little bit. well...you can see what is on the picture, let's say it that way :-)
After that eagle experience I felt some energy coming back into my system that I had been lacking the past few days. I really needed this, and I am thankful that I got to see it.
Even though I didn't get the pictures I came to do, I also learned a very important lesson:
Wildlife is not here for the sake of people,
sometimes you have to wait for it
and sometimes it doesn't show itself to you at all.
And after all, I did get to see some things I had never seen before and some truly amazing sights:
Northern Lights - Eagles fishing -4 Orcas doing spyhops at the same time -a very young baby orca less than a month old - Storms raging - Myself in a drysuit north of the polar circle in the middle of November !?! - postcards that cost 2$ - and a buffet in a restaurant that cost more than 100$ (!!!)
...And for those things - I am thankful!!
The trip home was a fun ride:
The first plane was cancelled because of the snow (same as the eagle from this morning...)
So we went on a busride for 1½ hours to another airport where a DASH-8 plane was waiting to take us from Leknes to Bodö. (We hoped)
Needless to say we were a bit worried that we were actually getting on board one of these infamous planes
(these are the type that has crashed quite a few times due to not functioning landing gear..eeeek)
Just before we took off, I saw a disturbing sight! Huge sparks stood out of a box right next to the plane and 20 seconds later they said they were having technical difficulties...double eeeek!
2 minutes later, I guess they said what the hell, and we took off and had a fairly bumby ride for the next 1 and a half hour.. We landed in Bodö in a snowstorm, and right after we landed they closed up the airport so they could clear the landing strips for snow...
A couple of hours later, realizing that we would never make the flight from Oslo to Copenhagen, we got on a plane to Oslo where we apparently were spending the night at a SAS hotel.
11 pm we sat down to have dinner, slept in the coolest designer rooms for about 3 hours, got up at 4:30, on the first plane to Denmark and straight to work...
The first thing we saw when we landed in Denmark was SNOW!!!
Thankfully a few hours later, the sun was shining...
And that's when I realized that we hadn't seen the sun at all in Lofoten.
Next time I am in Lofoten in the middle of November to swim with the orca I will book a ONE-WAY ticket and not come home until I have tried it..
That's all for this trip, I hope you enjoyed it..
Thanks to my fantastic parents that came along on this crazy trip.
It was a blast...Thank GOD for Gin & Tonic!!!
Until next time...
