We arrived in Tromso on Saturday around lunchtime after a quiet night at anchor off Lenvikveien - a peaceful spot before entering the city.

We called the Harbour Master on the way in and he gave us directions to the visitor pontoons. When we arrived we realised Lia was too fat (curvy!) to fit between the fingers so we had to raft on to an aluminum yacht called Bushpoint. As we rafted up we heard someone calling from the shore saying "here's Lia!!”. Looking around we found Diane, who we had met in Torshavn last year, waving at us from the pontoon! Di is now working as first mate aboard Anna Margeretta, a Dutch 22m steel tank that travels up to Svalbard and back with charter guests all Summer.

Once tied up against Bushpoint we met Jeanette and Fredrik, the lucky owners. We had heard about them from Soni when we were in the Faroes! They are a lovely couple from Vaxholm, Sweden who had also been in the Faroe Islands before travelling to Norway this year - it seems a lot of people have had the same idea as us, and are heading North! We discovered they have a YouTube channel which is growing rapidly and have recently celebrated their first monitory reward - one whole dollar! I really feel we are the only boat around without a YouTube video series!

We got talking to the skipper of Solitude, a motorboat/expedition vessel behind Bushpoint who had spent the last month and a half in Tromso skiing. They were about to depart and offered us their berth right at prime position. Now that most of the snow has gone they were heading south at 20 knot cruising speed, top speed is 28knots using a mear 137 ltrs per hour! Glad I don't have to fill her up!

The “Bushpoints” joined us aboard Lia on Saturday night where we enjoyed some wine and got to know each other, and discuss our sailing plans naturally! The next day myself and Beth commenced Operation “clean Lia” - lots of polish and elbow grease was required! We treated ourselves to a trip to the Marina Sauna (Tromso Pust!), where we joined the locals with a dip in the water - it was freezing cold, so I pushed Beth in so she could enjoy the cold twice! After our sauna we boarded Bushpoint, a beautiful new Boreal 55OC aluminum go-anywhere yacht. We were treated to a tour and I fell in love with the companion way enclosure that would be cosy on watch in all weathers, Beth fell in love with the head room and didn't bump her head once! We were joined by Di and the crew of Anna Margaretta, the perfect chance for us to ask all our Svalbard questions and pick their brains after their many trips North! Di treated us to a tour of the Anna Margaretta, and once again I loved the shelter and warmth of the dog house! I’m alraeding getting ideas of putting a lid on Lia!

Tromso is a nice city surrounded by snow capped mountains all year. There are pontoon fingers, but they are mainly suited for boats under 4m wide -not suitable for boats with curves like Lia. Bigger boats need to use the longer finger and raft up. You pay through the GoMarina app and it's 350NOK per night, with no special offers😥

There are a number of pubs and restaurants close by, the pubs seem fairly popular especially on a Saturday night around 2am! The local cuisine, served in most of the restaurants, is Reindeer - definitely worth a try!

As usual for Norway everyone we met was super friendly and spoke perfect English - bar one or two special cases in the local kebab shop after a few pints. They seemed to have little patience for the length of time the kebab engineer was taking to build his masterpieces, we can confirm they were worth the wait!