The card on the table

Nothing in Lofoten in February runs to a plan. The road to Henningsvaer closes. The boat does not go. The aurora forecast is a probability, not a schedule, and the person selling you a guaranteed sighting is selling you something else entirely.

So we write both versions down

On the table in every cabin, every morning, there is a card. It has today's plan on it, tonight's aurora probability, and underneath, what happens instead if the wind turns.

• The plan, with a time and a meeting point
• The alternative, with the same
• Tonight's KP index and cloud forecast, written by hand
• My number, which is answered

It takes me about ten minutes a day. It has done more for how travellers feel about a changed plan than anything else we have tried, because the alternative was written before the weather turned rather than improvised after it.

People do not mind a plan changing. They mind finding out that nobody had a second one.