Dodging the rain – the rain seems here to stay. Sandnessjøen to Rørvik (5 to 8 July 2015)

All the photographs which we have posted would suggest that it never rains in Norway. This is certainly not so this year! (I agree entirely…). But picking the good days to go (not always successfully) and seeing more beautiful places helps.

So it was on July 5^th, when we left Sandnessjøen. We knew that there were only a day and a half of sunshine predicted… and so many good places, including anchorages (the skippere’s favourite spots) to visit!

the labyrinth of rocks

The island of Vega seemed very interesting and most of all, the skerries to reach it from the north were fascinating and daunting at the same time (another typical challenge selected by the skipper). It took me a long time to work out the very detailed route through this labyrinth making lots of notes so that when we were there we could identify all the marks more easily.

We set off on the 5^th of July in full sunshine for Kerkøya, a small fishing village to the north of Vega. Unfortunately there was no room for us anywhere. It all seemed occupied by locals and there were no signs for any guest pontoon and nobody to ask. Having been told (by two of the latest cruising guides) that you could moor at the ferry pontoon on week-ends we tried, to be told immediately by someone waiting for the ferry that we could not moor there.

It was not a welcoming harbour, so we left again (in a bit of a huff) and were rewarded by finding another sheltered little bay on the mainland. Straumøya (65º 33’.1N 12º 14’.4E) is a very pretty and quiet anchorage, very easy to access and lies directly on the main channel.

getting together in the sun

delicious line caught cod

We were very surprised when one of the boats, which had been moored on the same pontoon as us in Sandnessjøen, appeared just half an hour after we had arrived. Having had a very tasty fish soup on their boat the previous evening, we invited them back for some chilli con carne. Tor who was a tractor mechanic by trade helped us diagnose a worrying knocking noise on our engine (it turned out to be nothing else than a loose engine mounting bolt!) and Siv who had just fished a 1m long cod (and was incredibly chuffed) gave us two big fresh cod steaks to take with us. We enjoyed a very nice evening with some aquavit (and even some sunshine) and single malt whisky.

leaving Straumøya

We knew that we had until the afternoon the next day with some sunshine and we wanted to go (back) as far as Rørvik (some 60nm away). We thought we could just make it before the rain if we left early. We left at 6.00 and there was no cloud in the sky. The sun was hazy and almost warm.

Another of my wishes was to make a detour to see Torghatten (yet again…), the mountain that looks like a hat and has a hole through its center which we climbed on our way north. You can only see the hole when you approach the island from the west, through another stretch of water strewn with rocks! It took some persuading to do before Stephan agreed (I did not really agree, but what can you do if the skipper insists?) that it might be worth doing. And it was (OK…)!

Sometimes the weather forecast doesn’t seem right (and isn’t, specially about the strength of the wind), but they predicted that the rain would start at 16.00 and it did, just as we arrived in Rørvik. The wind picked up to 20kn at times from the NE and then from the ESE just after we saw Torghatten’s hole, almost as if seeing the hole in the mountain had brought that about (I told you so, do not mess with the Trolls). Nevertheless we had a great,demanding, 6 hours sail to Rørvik.

Now we have left Nordland and Helgeland. I am a bit sad (me too) but I look forward to the rest of our journey and I am starting to look forward to getting home.

Torghatten, the mountain with the hole