Above the Arctic Circle, the sun stops setting in late spring. From around 20 May to 22 July, it circles the sky continuously — and the light it throws at midnight is nothing like daytime light. It is warm and flat and enormous, arriving from a very low angle, skimming across everything it touches and turning ordinary rock faces and still water into something that defeats photography and stays in the memory for a very long time.
We depart in the evening — typically around 10 or 11 pm — when the rest of the world has gone quiet. There is no one else on the fjord at this hour. The harbour empties and the water goes still, and the light, which has been building towards this for hours, starts to do what it came to do. We take the boat out into Senja's open water, where the mountains frame the horizon in every direction and there is nothing between you and the sky.
The cruise lasts three to four hours. There is no itinerary, no timetable. We go where the light is best. Your guide knows the coastline well enough to find the places where a particular cliff catches the gold, or where a narrow sound creates a corridor of reflected light on the water. Hot drinks are on board. You bring a camera, though you'll find that no photograph quite gets it.
