From Ocean to Plate - Fishing in Norway

Fishing Day in Lofoten, Norway

As I said in a previous post, Ed’s fishing trip was canceled so we rebooked him for today. And then I decided to join him rather than spend 7 hours on another tour. Since our trip wasn’t until afternoon we decided to head into downtown Leknes via the shuttle bus provided. Well - that was quite disappointing. We’re expecting a quaint fishing village and it was nothing like that at all. First of all it wasn’t on the water, it was a bit inland. The most exciting shop we found was a yarn shop that made me wish I knew how to knit. So we did a quick turnaround and headed back to the ship. Hey - it happens. I should have done more homework on that particular town ahead of time. But I will share with Viking that they need to explain to folks how visiting Leknes was probably not worth our while.

That morning, we saw the fishing boat come in that we would probably be sailing on later in the day. Once onboard after lunch, there were about 8 of us in addition to the two Captains and our guide, who was able to speak English and translate for the captains of the vessel. They were longtime Norwegian fishermen who now do these trips as their source of income. Very pleasant and if they spoke any salty language, we would have no idea!! One of the folks fishing with us was a Viking employee. 

Lofoten islands stretch 118 miles into the Norwegian Sea from Norway's coast. The cozy fishing harbors are dwarfed by the huge jagged mountain peaks rising from the water. Cod has long been harvested from these waters as they come here to spawn. More recently the fish have been caught from traditional rorbus - charming cottages that hover above the water on stilts.

We did not use fishing poles. Instead we used hand lines and spent our time jigging for the fish. But there was a reel on the boat to pull in the line. 

We headed out for about 45 minutes into the ocean, within sight of land. Our first spot yielded a fish almost immediately for the Viking employee. The 2nd and 3rd spots saw some additional fish caught by other guests - mainly small. And finally at the 4th spot, Ed caught one on the line while I reeled it in - it ended up being the biggest fish caught. The fish we caught was a Pollack (or Saith in Norwegian). 

It turns out that the Viking employee was the head chef on our ship!! He’s from South Africa and couldn’t have been nicer. We were able to chat extensively with him on our way back to port. Although we were led to believe that any fish we caught would either be released or the boat captains would take them, we discovered that the fishing boat captains filleted the fish for the Viking chef to take back on board the Viking Mars. And in conversation with the chef, he sort of hinted around that we might get to eat some of the fish for our dinner - but nothing specific. He commented that he knew how to find us as he could get our room numbers, etc. And that was that.

We headed into the restaurant around 7 pm and were seated next to one couple and then a mother and daughter were one more table away and we enjoyed some good conversation with both of them.

After Ed and I ordered our dinner, the maitre’d came over to Ed to ask if we would like to have the fish for our dinner. YES, we were going to get to eat the fish we caught! How cool! So, sure enough, out comes our pollack, cooked in a garlic, butter sauce, with julienne vegetables and mashed potatoes. What a nice treat!

I then decided (I have had a glass of wine or two at this point) to ask the maitre’d if the chef would stop by our table so we could thank him personally! So, sure enough, before we knew it, the chef was there to greet us and we had our picture taken with him. We felt like celebrities and our table mates were excited as well. One of them served as our photographer.

All in all, what a great experience for us. Another magical day on Viking Cruises!