Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 13km | Time 2.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I did not get to bed until late and when I woke I was still tired. I got up at 0900. The elder sister was up and had prepared a wonderful breakfast. We chatted and I watched the grey weather outside bring in the odd shower. It was really a wet misty day; however there was just little wind.

The breakfast chat was easy and the weather outside such that it was easy to have yet another coffee. She then had to go a do an emergency driving errand to for a doctor who arrived at the jetty on a boat to treat a fracture at the other end of the 8 km road. I meanwhile found some books on the coast of Norway and immersed myself in those while the drizzle continued.

Later I went down to the kayak to try and readjust the rudder again. The rudder pedals are just so stiff it is a real effort to use the rudder. I loosened the wire and taped some foam mat onto the rudder pedals to bring them forward a bit to see if this helped. The rudder is a never ending problem and the pedals just do not work smoothly. I was starting to curse the day the Smarttrack brochure landed on Tideraces’ doorstep. Once I get to Tromso or Bodo I will try and cut this cancer from the boat and install a different system.

Once the sisters were back I started to pack up and eventually left at 1500. There was a slow drizzle as I pushed off and headed across the 5 km Rognsund to a small island on the west side in front of a farm on the main Stjernoya island. Stjernoya was also a green and lush place. The small island in front of the farm had a lot of nesting gulls on it, who were reluctant to leave their nests as I paddled past.

I saw a couple of porpoise again. All the porpoises I have seen have been in very small groups. I am accustomed to seeing them in groups of 50 or so animals. Going along the west shore of Stjernoya I also saw some long-tailed ducks.

There was a small current flowing south down the island and this helped carry me along to the southern tip where it flow into the other current coming east producing some turbulence. I stayed out of it by hugging the coast. Just after the tip was Halvorvik bay with an old house, now a cabin in it. It lay in a lush meadow. Like Seiland, Sternoya does not have any mammal predators. This lack of fox means there is a rich population of hares. I could make a couple out in the grass as the white remnants of their winter coast showed up when they moved. Apparently there are plenty of eagles on the islands due to the number of hares.

With the drizzle now turning to heavy rain I paddled up the south coast of Stjernoya for an hour passing a steep coastline which continued up birch and juniper clad hillsides to the bare rock and snowfields of craggy peaks above. Most of these peaks were hidden in the mist as they went up to nearly 1000 metres.

After an hour I passed a bay with a large shallow estuary and inlet and flat pastures beyond the shore. I decided to go in here and return the rudder back to its previous unsatisfactory settings as my tinkering had not worked. The rain was bucketing down so much so the sea was becoming quite still.

Despite the fact it was just 1730 and I had only done 13 km I decided to stay here rather than carry on. I would get and early night and hopefully catch the ebbing tide tomorrow morning from about 0700 onwards.

I put up the tent did the blog at once and then concentrated on supper of mashed potato with some lentil and meat mixed in. it was very simple and easy. I had everything done by 2200 and crashed out with the sound of rain still dripping onto the tent. As I did the tent zip up an otter wandered past.

It had been a short wet day with the frustrations of the Smarttrack rudder gnawing at my calm.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.