The trips are about eating well, too. Stein and Bjorn have an old-
fashioned cooking stove onboard and all the way they give us little
morsels to eat while trying to tempt us towards their impressive
stack of booze (it’s 9am when we go out). There’s fish cakes from
yesterday’s catch; reindeer sausages made from an animal that
Bjorn hunted a few days earlier; and smoked salmon that Stein
fished from a nearby river. Like most people we meet in Ålesund,
they believe in eating fresh and local – and you can taste why.
Our second fishing trip of the day also has a foodie aspect, and is
the one that tempted us to Ålesund in the first place. 62˚Nord, the
town’s leading travel company, offers packages where you can fish
and then have your catch cooked by the best seafood chef in town at
Maki, the restaurant in the stunning waterside Hotel Brosundet.
The 12-person M/S Legona is significantly smaller than Actin’s
hulking vessel, but she has a comfortable cabin stocked with
drinks and enough zip to get further into the fjord faster. We are
issued with luminous, inflatable jumpsuits that make us look like
Michelin men as we clamber onto the seating area at the top of
the boat. Captain Tom Tøsse, another seaman with a twinkle in
his eye, boasts of an uncanny ability to seek out fish, and he takes
“
He shows
us the cod’s
still-beating
heart on
his fingertip
before
plopping the
tiny piece of
flesh into his
mouth and
swallowing”
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