It’s now just two of us: Meryon left us in Tromso and I forgot to mention that in the last blog post.  It had always been the plan that he would fly back from there and that Giles would sail on with me to Bodo where he will leave and Chris will join on Friday.

 

It’s now Wed morning and we’ve had three days’ sailing since leaving Tromso on Sun morning: we seem to have packed a huge amount into that time.  We aimed to follow a different route back down through the Lofotens from the route north so we could see new places but most of the first day was unavoidably a re-trace of our earlier passage.  We headed off south in low cloud and drizzle with poor visibility, alternating between motoring, motor-sailing and sailing. Overall we made good and enjoyable progress.  Our first obstacle was the narrows at Rystraumen a few miles south of Tromso, where we forced our way through against a strong adverse tide, hugging the shore to keep out of the main stream.  Predicting tidal streams is still proving a challenge as our pilots all give conflicting advice and the Norwegians don’t seem to use tidal stream atlases.  Half way through Rystraumen a whirlpool opened up alongside us as we transitioned between a back eddy and the main stream.  The remainder of our passage to Finnsnes was uneventful and we had a short pit-stop there for showers before continuing west to an anchorage off the village of Stronglandet where we arrived at just after 2200.  Gradually the weather had improved and we covered some good distance towards Bodo.

 

On Mon morning we set off after a blustery night with fallvind (katabatic winds) pulling us around in the anchorage, and we were soon able to hoist sail as we headed on westwards, now diverging from our northbound route. We had a lovely beat across to a sound to the south of Bjarkoy in a fresh F4, and then had to motor through against headwinds, hoping the breeze would resume on the far side.  However, we found ourselves in almost no wind, heavy showers and poor visibility as we made our way across to a dredged channel providing a shortcut to the south of Andoya and into the area north of the Lofotens, known as Vesteralen.  As we passed through the narrow channel a powerful ocean-going tug came the other way, and we spotted a sea eagle sitting on one of the large lighting piles.  Our course then took us due south and we had a long goose-winged sail down towards the port of Sortland.  The anchorages we had in mind for that night were all open to the north, so not good in the northerly wind, so we decided to look at a secluded cove, Blokken, that had mixed reviews in the pilots, with a suggestion that it might be overwhelmed with fish farming and associated industry.  What we found was idyllic as we moored onto a low, rather rickety pontoon in a lagoon surrounded by forested mountains.  We couldn’t go ashore as the pontoon gate was locked, but we really didn’t need to.  It had been another good day’s progress.

 

Yesterday we were up early and away, now in good weather which was improving all the time.  We needed to catch the tide through Raftsund where it runs very fast and we’d managed to do some internet research to determine timings of the tidal streams.  Although there was no wind the scenery was outstanding and just got better as we headed south.  Just before the start of the narrow sound – Raftsund – running due south, we wriggled through small islands and rocky outcrops, watching the local ferry flitting between settlements ashore.  We were then under a high bridge and into the sound itself, initially wondering what all the fuss was about with regard to tides.  However, about halfway down the sound narrows and become much shallower and we shot through with our speed doubled for about 15 minutes.  Either side there were imposing mountains and tiny settlements looking picturesque in the sun.  Giles was keen to see Trollfjord, right on our route, so we went in and moored on a small pontoon at the head of the fjord for coffee, then lunch.  Just as we arrived we spotted a pair of sea eagles on the shore line.  Our plan was to head to Svolvaer, the capital of the Lofotens, and we’d decided to try a shallow passage that we’d avoided on our way into Trollfjord the previous time, but we needed it to be high water to get through.  As it turned out there was ample depth of water, and we arrived at our destination just before 1700. 

 

Svolvaer is a lovely place, straddling many islands which are inter-connected by bridges, all of which are too low for our mast.  So we moored on pontoons right in the town centre and enjoyed a glass of wine in the cockpit in the sunshine admiring the ‘Svolvaer goat’, a mountain pinnacle with two ‘horns’ on its summit.  After supper we explored the small town and stumbled upon an excellent WW2 museum, still open until late, focussing on the German occupation of the region.

 

Today we’ll head south across Vestfjord towards Bodo.  It’s bright sunshine with a light breeze and it should be good sailing in magnificent scenery.  The attached photos show sunlight in Vesteralen,

our Blokken mooring, rock hopping north of Raftsund, Raftsund scenery, a sea eagle and Svolvaer.