We sailed from Leka to Rorvik (Rørvik) where we met up with one of our sons, his wife and two-year-old daughter, a real charmer. We had two wonderful days with them on Sor-gjeslingan (Sør-gjeslingan). The weather was exceptionally warm with clear blue skies.
On the first night the small pontoon was host to two Swedish boat when we were joined by friends on Xavita.
We had out crab pot out, from the pontoon near the breakwater, during the night and caught four large crabs using chicken bones as bait. Trey tasted delicious and we were all so excited over the catch than, among four persons with cameras, none of us managed to document them.
Sor-gjeslingan is an old fishing hamlet once home to more than 4 000 fishermen in season, now in part a museum.
It will soon be our third night om Leka. A beautiful island with lots of history. We generally do not like to sail in strong headwinds nor rain if it can be avoided. We have stayed put in the nice and quiet Skrei harbour on Leka as we have had both rainy and stormy weather for two days now with winds up to force 7 (moderate gale / styv kuling).
We left Sandnessjoen on a sunny and windless morning and motored south in the archipelago. There are a lot of fish farms along the coast, and we passed several of them during the day.
The wind picked up from the north around midday. A nice and gentle breeze allowed us to sail south the rest of the day. We chose a more western rout than on our way north, west of Brunnoysund and Torghatten.
This time we were able to see the hole in Torghatten as we passed to the SW of the island. We sailed for long periods with the main and our Code 0 wing and wing and arrived in Leka after a long day and some 64 nm.
Leka has one of Norway’s 22 protected farming landscapes with farms recorded 600 years ago and probably dating back to Viking days.
The harbour is very well protected by skerries, reefs and a breakwater. The bay inside must have been an excellent place for the Viking ships.
Herslaugshagen, the burial mound of King Herlaug, a local chieftain, lies just above the bay. It is a large ship burial, one of Norway’s largest mounds, likely to have included a ship larger than the famous ships unearthed south of Oslo (Osebergskeppet and Gokstadsskeppet) . A saga links the burial to the year 870 AD when Norway was unified by King Harald Harfagre (Harald Hårfagre).
The clouds lifted in late afternoon allowing us a long walk on the island. The saying “blown away” takes on a more literal meaning when you stand on the hill on a windy day like yesterday.
We have also had time to fix some things onboard. Yesterday was very grey in the morning so we set to work on our toilet.
The spare Eva had picked up is in principle a new toilet. It is the part between the toilet bowl and the outlet pipe to the vacuum unit and it includes all moving parts and sealings. We were very happy with the result.
Todays work was not expected. The freshwater pump started running during breakfast. We suspected a leak and eventually found one, close to the water heater in the stern, where a hose had come lose. Easily fixed but, it involved emptying everything in our large stern storage in order to reach it.
We wanted to reach Sandnessjoen (Sandnessjøen) before some heavy weather arrived and left Bolga quite early. We motored in the lovely Helgeland archipelago favouring channels and sounds among the smaller islands to the west of the larger ones.
It was still calm when we stopped for some cod fishing and secured dinner. Then a light breeze picked up allowing us to sail southwards but preventing us to catch he big cod we were trying for.
Sandnessjoen is a small town with a good harbour. We were happy to see Carmensita and Salto on the pontoon. Friends took our lines and promptly lured us onboard Salto to meet the family and have an anchor dram of Myken whiskey.
We have now crossed our northward track (red) and concluded our 550 nm sail above the polar circle (dashed yellow line)
We were able to move to the leeward side of the pontoons between the rain showers the following day. We tied up with all our lined with dampeners to be secure in the expected storm.
Eva left with the ferry to Nesna today to meat with her aunt who has been receiving several packages for us. Now we have spare parts for the toilet and stove to be installed the next rainy day (not to far of if we are to believe the forecasts).
Midsommer was celebrated with traditional food and drinks.
We left Rost in much better visibility then on our arrival. With it’s shark fin shaped mountain in clear view.
There was not much wind, so we motored towards the coast. It was a splendid day with clear blue skies and very good visibility allowing us to sea both the costal mountains and the Lofoten islands in the distance. As we approached the coast, we saw the lion on Rodoy (Rødøyløva) laying looking out to sea.
We picked up som wind the last hours and were able to sail in under the lighthouse on Kalsholmen. We had used the glacier Sortisen to steer by for a long time and it was still prominent as we sailed to the small harbour of Bolga.
Bolga was a pleasant island. It has nice walks but, time did not allow. The restaurant is run by a chef from Gothenburg. We had a long chat with him, and he presented us to a sample of a very nice Myken whiskey. The drinks as well as the first night on the dock were free of charge.
We availed ourselves of the easily accessible fuelling station, with the lowest price (for us) so far in Norway, before we left the following day.
We sailed in nice weather and following winds from Reine. Leaving gave us a different view of Reinebringen .
Popping into Sorvagen (Sørvågen) introduced us to another small hamlet well worth a visit. But not for us this time. Instead, we headed for Vaeroy (Væröy). This was a potential stop for the night but, the going was good so we just past nearby before continuing further south.
We had seen fog on the sea in the west and some sneaking in over Vaeroy. Rost (Røst), our revised goal for the day, was often hidden in fog as we approached.
We also saw the fog lift creating a mystical feeling. We used the radar on the approach and was lucky enough to see the fog clear as we were approaching the channel to the harbour.
The fog returned later in the evening.
We had a nice walk among the drying fish on these low laying islands that constitutes the southernmost part of Lofoten. The smell from the fish was ever present.
The summer was back as we sailed SW along the impressive Lofoten mountains. They are among the oldest rocks on earth dating back some 3 billion years. The mountains have been shaped by several ice ages.
The wind was very varying as it came from NW, i.e. through the mountains. It blow strong out from the sounds and fjords giving us good speed but disappeared behind some of the mountains forcing us to motor past the calmer parts.
Our plan was to visit one of the oldest and best-preserved fishing hamlets; Nusfjord. As we discover on arrival, the pontoon was occupied by a working platform renovating the docks. Realising that this was what a German sailor had tried to tell us in Henningsvaer, we turn around and head for the next hamlet on our list.
Sailing with full genoa and main, as we had done through the day, we peaked nine knots on an open reach in winds up to 30 knots (15 m/s) towards Reine.
Reine is a nice old fishing hamlet, popular to many kinds of tourists, as it is home to one of Norways most popular and spectacular walks. We decided to stay for the day and make the walk up the 1 971 stairs to the top od Reinebringen.
The stairs stars quite gently but, as opposed to other similar walks we have done, this one does not have any ridges or flat parts. It is just a stairway up the mountain, and it is steep in some parts.
The walk is graded medium, and it was a tough one. Views from the top are among the most photographed and they are definitely worth the clime.
Going down was more scarry than going up for the old man with fear of heights.
We left Skipnes on a grey morning with little wind.
Motoring most of the way down to Laukvik, a small fishing hamlet on the NV side of Lofoten. TThe sea was unsettled and we used part of the genoa and main, both sheeted midships, to reduce the rolling motion of the boat.
Laukvik, as so many other places along the coast , is still active. We found a lot of cod heads drying adding to the local “atmosphere”. Luckily, the little wind that was, blow in the right direction.
We continued south through Grimsoystraumen (Grimsöystraumen), one of the sounds through the Lofoten islands with Henningsvaer at its southern entrance. Laukvik was strategically close to allow timing the tide that runs 4-5 knots at its peak.
We aimed for the last part of the tide and had a nice following tide all the way.
Around 3 knots in the narrowsby the bridge, and a nice reach south from the there.
Henningsvaer is a large fishing hamlet with a long and narrow harbour. The pontoons are at the far (southern) end and we had an interesting docking reversing in behind a large sailboat with 15 knots wind on the bow and rocks just behind the pontoon. All went well. We had valuable help from the other sailboat skippered by a Swedish girl from Malmoe.
The fishing hamlets was in full swing already in the 12th century when the export of dried fish through Bergen had developed. There could be up to 30 000 fishermen in 20-30 hamlets in Lofoten dusing the winter.
Skipnes lies on the island of Tindsoy (Tindsøy). This is our third day on this lovely island without cars and roads. It is a grey day with drizzle. The plan was to continue but we had seen fog out to sea yesterday. So, we walk up to Anna, see below, to have a look and the sea was not tempting.
We arrived quite late two days ago after a long sail around Vesteralen (Vesterålen). Looking at the forecasts for the week, yesterday looked like the last “summer day” for some time. Having sailed a lot, we decided to stay and explore.
Seeing the westernmost part of the island one understands the name Tindsoy (at least if one speaks Scandinavian languages).
We took a long walk to the old trading post Tinden. It was closed and deserted. Coffee tasted good in the sun.
It was described as a 45-minute walk – it took us 75 including several stops to admire the views that were amassing.
The local beer tasted very good after out three hours excursion.
We had diner on local foods as the only guests in the restaurant in the evening. Eva had bokrafisk, a semidried cod. They dry it themselves here according to family traditions where the loins of the Skrei (the cod that comes down from the Barent sea in late winter) are dried over sea water right on the dock outside.
It is dried just enough to get a rich flavour but not so dry that it needs soaking in water before cooking as ordinary dried fish does. It is then frozen for the summer season. It tasted delicious.
A short walk up the hill took us to the statue of Anna in Vinje after dinner. She is an ancestor to Astrid who now runs Fiskevaeret Skipnes. She lived between 1827 and 1913 and was one of the many women on this coast that saw many family members lost at sea. She never gave up, but rather mustered up inner courage, and used it to ensure survival.
Today have been a relaxed day of catching up on things, a shorter walk, and giving our Vetus engine some TLC. Changing oil is so much easier with this engine as we have a permanently mounted oil change pump and the oil filter on the bulkhead with a plastic box below to catch the old filter and dripping oil.
We left the anchorage early to motor north over a flat and calm see, leaving the impressive mountains of Lofoten behind us to enter Vesteralen (Vesterålen), the next region of the Norwegian coast.
It was still calm and no tide in Sortlandsund south of the bridge. We stopped the boat and drifted over and beyond some 10 m shallows to try our luck with fishing again. At around 20 m the cod started to bite. Eva caught a large one that we lost when we tried to bring it aboard.
Shortly afterwards, we caught one each, Eva once again the largest. She has a red and black lure whereas Hakan has a “svenskepilk”, a silver lure with some squids above it. We resumed motoring happy to have dinner in the refrigerator.
We were able to sail, tacking upwind, north of the bride and most of the way up the sound. The wind died and the sea got confused as we approached the Norden part of Langoy (Langøy).
We passed out northernmost point in the afternoon after 1 265 nm and seven weeks sailing. We were, at 69°01’48 when we rounded Langenes
and headed south on the west side of Vesteralen. We are now, in principle, sailing back but we are not sailing home yet.
The scenery here is like nothing we have ever seen before.
We sit in awe just looking at the ever-changing views.
High mountains barren from sea and wind on the windward (west) side and,
lush and green on the leeward side. Some small fishing hamlets but otherwise quite deserted with the occasional house or farm near the coast.
A long day (61 nm) has taken us to Tindsoy (Tindsøy). We drink our last bottle of bubbles before dinner to celebrate our northernmost sail ever.
We bid farewell to Salto, who we have sailed with on and off for close to a month, and to Carmensita this morning after two nights in Svolvaer. Salto was going back to the coast and Carmensita down the Lofoten island. We, on the other hand, was heading north.
Our first goal was Trollfjorden, a magical, mystical little fjord. In lies about 15 nm from Svolvaer. It is only 100 m wide and a few miles deep but absolutely breathtaking. No wonder there are so many tourist boats in there, even Hurtigruten goes in.
Trollfjorden lies of the southern end of Raftsund, one of a few navigable passages north to south between the islands of the Lofoten chain. As the islands are blocking the tide, the current runs strong in these sounds.
We had tried to time our passage to be at the beginning of the north going tide when the current is building. A prolonged farewell on the dock and, stopping the boat in a failed attempt to catch dinner, had delayed us some.
We had a week following tide increasing to between 3 and 4 knots in the narrowest/shallowest parts up the scenic sound.
At the end of Raftsund lies one of few good anchorages in these parts, Skipoyosen on Brattoya. We saw one boat at anchor, a French boat that had left Svolvaer the day before. There were movements onboard, and they weighted their anchor as we came in, leaving the anchorage for us to use in splendid solitude.
A lovely place surprisingly well protected from the passing traffic in the nearby fairway.
We had a nice, sunny and warm afternoon and a magic evening admiring the lovely scenery.
It is a strange feeling to adjust your solar panels before you go to bed around midnight. Quite a lot of energy is generated as the midnight sun is shining through the night.
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