After Ro left, water fell from the sky, in all its different forms… A lot. We stayed in Henningsvær for a while, emerging from the boat to get groceries.
One day, it was going to be sunny in the afternoon with no wind, and the next was rainy with good sailing wind. We chose sun, and motored east to Svolvær, the main town in Lofoten, planning to wait out the weather and see the town. It is an old fishing town, and the fish are definitely still playing a part in the economy.
Turns out this was an excellent decision, as the orcas came out to play just as we were turning into the harbour.
The next few days were going to be very gusty and unpredictable, so we planned to stay in port. Good plan, as we got snowed on a lot. We did brave the weather and decide to go out for a walk around town to explore, and smell the money (read “drying in the rain” cod – and cod heads). It was really quite an unbelievable aroma.
We went to see the Lofoten War Memorial Museum which is purported to have the most extensive collection of uniforms and small artefacts from World War 2. It did not disappoint and you would need hours to read about every artefact they had. We also see the old town on the island opposite the main part of town, and walk out to the Fisherman’s Wife statue, through the fish – whilst holding our breath.
Eventually, we were tired of big city life, and the endless commercial tours going to Trollfjord had inspired us to do our own Trollfjord and bird watching safari. So off we popped on Away, motoring again because the wind was either forecast to blow a gale or be dead calm. We motored again to the beautiful Trollfjord, then up to a nice little anchorage for the evening.
We explore the anchorage by dinghy, and Bernie relishes his land time by eating poo and anything else he can find on this beautiful white beach. You’d honestly think we were in the Bahamas or somewhere else I haven’t been yet with the colour of the sand and the water, even in the grey. One look at our outfits though and you’d remember it was less than 5 degrees and yes that is a sleet shower coming, or rain, or snow. Something cold.
We did see a moose footprint. Bernie enjoyed a swim, of course… Really it was because he got lost and found himself on the other side of a stream to us, and decided that was the best way to get across, rather than take the longer route around via land. He was soaked, and the weather was coming, so back to the boat for a warm shower, for all of us.
Another anchorage was calling. We needed some anchorages after all the big city life and this one did not disappoint. We anchored, and the wind blowing off the small hill on the windward side of the anchorage decided that it would turn the wind around to the opposite direction to what we were expecting when we anchored so we spent a relaxed evening about 20m away from the shoreline. Fortunately it wasn’t forecast to be more than about 6 knots all night so we didn’t worry. Too much.
And wouldn’t you know it! We’re in the arctic! So naturally another gale is forecast and being in our little anchorage tucked up against some rocks, where the wind does the opposite to the forecast didn’t seem like a very safe plan, so we decided to find a nice harbour in a fjord on the island of Senja which promised excellent hiking and views. Unfortunately, we never found the harbour, instead we had one great moment of sailing, and then the wind died and we wobbled around in the washing machine swell before deciding another, closer harbour might be okay for the gale that was coming. It cut about 2 hours off the washing machine cycle so we were happy with our decision.
We get blown onto the dock in Gryllefjorden, put out all the fenders, because it wasn’t the most gentle docking we’d ever done and 5 minutes after docking we were seeing 25 knots directly on the starboard side pinning us against the dock. Hmmm, the forecast was supposed to be 15 knots from the south, outside the fjord we had no knots from no where, and inside the fjord we had 25 knots from the east. Arctic Norway keeps us guessing. The wind was supposed to turn around to gale force from the west, and after a few hours, yes the forecasted winds filled right in, and we enjoyed being rocked to sleep with 30 knots from the port side, gusting to 40. At least we were being blown off the dock.
After a good night of not sleeping, we decided to stay here in this old fishing village for a couple of days and have a look around, waiting for another weather window to head north towards Tromsø. One was coming, but not before Gryllefjorden, that we are now dubbing “the Katabatic Town” gave us one last gift of unscheduled gale force winds from the east again (it was coming from the south, but the mountains mean it shoots down the fjord from the east). We both stay up until 4AM feeling the boat crash into the dock. Literally crash because by this time our fenders had basically given up. Running on no sleep, not helped by the midnight sun through grey clouds, we leave nice and early, hoping for fairer pastures further north.
Our next stop is full of white beaches, and apparently no wind. So we motor and sailed a little to Sommarøy. Sommarøy is gorgeous old fishing village, even when the weather only has peeks of sunshine.
Bernie had a great run on the beach, but another gale is coming, and we want to get to Tromsø, because we have booked ourselves a little holiday.
Onwards to Tromsø and we have a shredding upwind sail, manually helming because it was super fun until our hands went numb. We get stalked by the coastguard for a while who sneakily turned off their AIS for some reason. They were parked in port, with AIS on, and as we passed they turned it off, and headed out towards us. I assume they eventually rang their friends who told them we were not illegal, and to please leave us alone, because it wasn’t long before they changed course away from us to go and stalk other unwary sailors.
Soon, as it is inevitably true, the wind started being weird, so we packed up the sails for the day to motor the last couple of hours to Tromsø. As we were about an hour out of Tromsø, we we navigating through a tight section of water, and observing the sea state. It was weird. Adrian suddenly realised – thats a whirlpool, and we were heading straight for it. It should be mentioned we had been patting ourselves on the back about 5 minutes earlier for getting the time right for the current as it was pushing us along nicely, but as soon as we saw the state of this straight, we realised the current had other ideas. We went from 8 knots, to 2, in the space of about 5 minutes. The current was absolutely gushing through the straight. Power up on the engine, we fought the 6 knot current for about 30 minutes until finally getting back out into more open water. The tanker behind us called us on the radio wondering what we were doing, telling us they were going to pass us on port, but by the time we had finished our little radio conversation with them, we were suddenly doing 7 knots again, and they had gone from 12 to 6, so we won the race. Eventually they did pass us, but not until we were turning into Tromsø. I guess they didn’t read about the currents there either.
Once through that, we dock in our first Y berth dock of the year, kind of successfully (nothing broke and no one was hurt), and we were in Tromsø. This is as far north as we have ever been, and as far north as Away will go (for the foreseeable future).
Next time we have plans for a little break away from Away and getting someone else to drive for a few days.
