We’ve had a wonderful slow potter back from Skjervoy to Tromso, taking three days to travel only 60nm.  Our first day was a short afternoon sail, downwind with just the genoa up in bright sunshine, to a little bay on the west side of the island of Vorteroya Virta where we anchored in the early evening.  We’d chosen this place as it had clear views of the Lyngen peninsula just to our west, and we weren’t disappointed.  On the shore we had a brief glimpse of a sea otter, and we thought we saw a large fish in the clear water so put the line over the side and caught a small pollock within about a minute.  It didn’t seem fair to continue so we let the pollock go and brought the line in, content with watching a beautiful sunset behind the mountainous islands to our north.  Sunsets are now becoming a feature of our passage once more: whilst the nights aren’t completely dark they’re certainly not as bright as they were on our way north – the seasons march on!

 

The next day it wasn’t quite such bright weather and there wasn’t much wind so we motored around the tip of the Lyngen peninsula and into one of two small fjords on its western side; Nor-Levangen, where we again anchored in the early afternoon.  We got there just in time to miss a downpour which turned into steady rain through the whole afternoon and evening.  We resorted to reading and backgammon, feeling cosy down below and wondering what on earth the locals do up here when the weather is so bad, and how they pass the winters when it’s dark the whole time as well.

 

Yesterday the weather switched back to glorious sunshine, blue skies and a few white clouds.  As soon as we were clear of the fjord we hoisted full main and genoa and had a memorable beat across to Grotsund (Grot Sound was much more pleasant than the name suggests!).  In flat water and a steady F4 we seemed to be lifted on every tack and made excellent progress, only motoring the final hour as the wind was dropping and we needed to charge the batteries.  Our anchorage last night was in the middle of a small group of islands that we’d spotted on our way north 5 weeks ago and we arrived there at about 1630 and found a perfect spot where we could see the anchor chain on the sandy bottom in 10m of crystal clear water. For the first time we sat in the cockpit and on deck reading in the sunshine, having at last exchanged fleeces for polo shirts.  We even had supper in the cockpit and then did some planning for our onward passage through the Lofotens to Bodo. 

 

Today is Meryon’s birthday so we woke him with a carefully rehearsed rendering of ‘Happy Birthday’ by the Rosinis male voice choir, to which his response was something along the lines of ‘I’m glad I was already awake or that would have been like a nightmare!’  Right now we’re sailing fast downwind and have Tromso in sight.  Once there we’re going to try and find a birthday cake for him........but he doesn’t know that yet.

 

The attached photos show the Lyngen peninsula, sunset behind the mountains to our north, yours truly on the helm, Rosinis in perfect light wind beating conditions, and our anchorage last night.

 

PS: we’re now moored in the centre of Tromso and just had lunch in the cockpit............in shorts!!