Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

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I woke at 0700 and looked outside. The wind was up and there was a snow shower passing over the hills to the east of Mehamn. It was as forecast and expected.

After breakfast I sorted out the food into six packets, each of which would do me 24 hours and then put them into compression bags and the two dry bags. I start a new food pack every evening for dinner and it contains the next days’ breakfast and lunch.

I then went and explored the wharfs again and went to the café to meet Hanne who was one of the family I met yesterday. I had lunch there and Hanne she showed me around the town where she spent her first 7 years some 40 years ago before moving south.

It was interesting to get a local view. We walked out to the small peninsula to the north of the town where there were some ruined German fortifications. Beyond the peninsula was the broad Sorfjorden. The weather was not so snowy now and the wind had dropped off to a force four. In addition the swell which has been so large in the previous days was starting to dwindle.

After the walk I returned to the youth hostel via the wharfs again. I spoke with one fisherman who had just landed nearly a ton of black halibut. These he caught on 12 longlines each with 300 hooks. He would leave the line out for 24 hours before returning the next day to take them up and set another 12 lines. He said it was normal to catch about 300 fish in this 24 hour period. He was from Lofoten and would be returning there in 3 weeks.

The weather forecast was still looking OK for tomorrow but it had deteriorated slightly. However impatience was now getting the better of caution and I had pretty much decided to go unless it blew up to a force five, which is very unlikely. Rather than cook I went to the hotel for a meal and then returned at 2200 to write the blog and prepare for an early start tomorrow.

It had been another day where I had nothing better to do than kill time; luckily I had some good company to help me.

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Unfortunately the weather was slightly worse than the forecast predicted in the morning and the wind was around force four with frequent squalls coming through which were force six and made the flags snap. This was not a prohibitive wind but it was from the north and was still bringing the massive swell from the Barents Sea to the north. In addition it was bringing frequent snow shows in the bitter wind.

The forecast said the day would deteriorate from the afternoon to a force five and increase tomorrow to a force six and remain from the north. So by not continuing today I am committing to stay here until Saturday. Between the delay at Gamvik and now at Mehamn I have lost over a week of paddling and a fair bit of momentum which is frustrating.

I went for a walk through the town to the bay on the north side of Mehamn where it was possible to see the ocean to the north. There were a lot of white horses on top of the large waves in the broad Sorfjorden. It was the right decision to stay.

I then went to the café for a long coffee. While there I saw frequent snow showers sweep in from the north. This didn’t prevent many fishing boats leave the harbour to go out with their baited long lines for another shift at sea.

En route from the café to the library I went via the quiet wharfs. Here I saw a pair of long-tailed ducks swimming in the harbour. I had already seen a pair of red throated divers in the morning. There were quite a few species here if one took the time to look.

In the library I wanted to look at books on Norway’s coast and bird books but met an older family there and started chatting. They were interesting. I arranged to meet some of them tomorrow if I was still here. They were all visiting their childhood homes having moved to other areas in Norway some 20-40 years ago.

There was another snow shower when I left the library and headed back to the youth hostel. I was going to shower and then go to the hotel for a meal but there was a television program on about Helgelands’ coast to the south of Bodo. This is recognized as one of the top 10 paddling destinations in the world and I would be passing through in 6 weeks so I stayed in to get some tips on where to go.

I check the forecast regularly during the day and by the evening I could see that there was at least 4 days of great weather coming from Saturday 6 June afternoon through to Wednesday. This lifted my spirits greatly. Indeed I can barely wait to get started. These 4 days will be enough to see me round Nordkapp and on to Havoysund. Hopefully there will also be enough time to visit the renowned bird colonies at Gjesvaerstappan also.

It was a day where it was difficult to find things to fill the time. However the weather forecast excited me and would make tomorrow easier to pass, knowing good weather is nigh.

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The possible paddle last night came to nothing as the wind increased to a force four from the north and this would have done nothing to dampen the huge waves. When I woke in the morning it was the same. The forecast said it would get worse as the day progressed. I had expected this and had already resigned myself to the day in Mehamn. I got up reasonably late and then went into town.

The wind was bitterly cold on the way in. I went to the small café and had a breakfast roll and coffee as a snow shower piled in from the north. This was quite a surprise for June 3rd. I could see why people are so reluctant to put away their insulated overalls and dig out the bikinis. A few people joked it was the National dress of Finnmark.

After some shopping I went for a walk down by the fish wharfs. There must have been about 50 boats which landed their catch in Mehamn. Many were local boats but some were from Lofoten or Vesteralen and followed the Spring Cod up here and will be returning soon. Again a lot of the fishing seems to be done with long lines with many hundreds of hooks on each line.

In the afternoon I did some computer work and then went to the library where I could immerse myself in some of the bird books. There were many of the wader type birds which I wanted to identify. As I returned to the youth hostel in the increasing wind I saw a Red Throated Diver and a Common Merganser swimming about in the harbour.

In the evening I thought I would try to eat stock fish. This is the cod which was drying on huge racks on the southern half of town. There must have been the equivalent of 2 football pitches which were dedicated to drying the cod the boats landed each day. Locally it is called Boknafisk. It was well cooked and beautifully presented but this did not hide the taste. I was hoping for the salted cod I had in Vardo instead I got something with an almost leathery texture and half rotten taste.

When I returned from the meal I found there were a couple of Ornithologists staying at the youth hostel. They were on their way to the Nature Reserve at Slettnes Fyr lighthouse to look for wading birds. They confirmed I was wrong with the birds on Day 137. They were a rare flock of Polar Snipe and not the Purple Sandpipers. I was also wrong with the birds on Day 138. They were Purple Sandpipers and not the Stints as written.

The weather forecast does not look too promising for tomorrow but it could be feasible. However, it looks like there is at last some more settled weather coming in 3 days for about 3 days which should see me round Nordkapp and into marginally more sheltered waters.

It had been a very social land based day. I had however already explored Mehamn and there was not much more to see.

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It was windstill when I went to bed at 2300 and when the alarm went at 0400 nothing has changed. The sky was overcast which was at odds with the main forecast I use, which said it would be sunny. The secondary forecast said it would be overcast and the winds would start to blow again much earlier than the main forecast which said midday.

After breakfast I managed to get all the stuff and the kayak down to the waters’ edge by 0600 and I set off soon after, just after the only fishing boat to operate out of Gamvik. Once outside the harbour I turned north and cut inside the skerry which I had seen take such a pounding from the waves over the last days, and still was.

To my surprise there was another skerry blocking my way and it too was taking a pounding. Between the two was a gap of about 100 metres where there were no breaking waves but the waves which were coming through were large and quite steep at about 2 metres. It must have still been the ebbing tide through the gap which steepened the swell coming out of the north.

Once through the gap I could see that there were skerries all the way up the coast to the now visible Slettnes Fyr lighthouse and massive waves were breaking on them. I kept a good km out to the east of these skerries and the coast. As I headed north the waves increased in size and some must have been at least 4 metres. Luckily the crests were far apart and they were reasonably gentle but moving at a tremendous speed.

As I drew level with the lighthouse the distant headland of Kinnarodden appeared. It had been my goal to go round this today by I was not so sure now I was paddling through these huge waves. I could imagine what the strong tidal flow would be doing to them up there.

Just to the north of Slettnes Fyr lighthouse are two skerries and many underwater rocks. These extend for a good few kilometers offshore. This area is renowned as an unpredictable and dangerous headland, possibly the most dangerous in Northern Norway and it is marked on the sea chart as an area with dangerous waves. It is necessary to make a long detour into the sea to avoid the worst of it. It is seemingly possible to sneak along the shore in a small boat or kayak but given the swell pounding the shore here I thought it best to keep out and make the long detour.

As I drew passed to the north of the lighthouse the waves seemed to increase in size again. There were some 5 metre monsters which came out of the heaving sea to the north. Between waves it was like being in a valley. I have only seen waves of this size once before and that was when I poked my nose out of Dusky Fiord into the Southern Ocean and rounded Five Finger Point, before common sense got the better of me and I turned back into the Dusky Fiord.

These waves went crashing onto the skerries and reared up over the hidden under water shallows some half km to the south of me, which I reckoned was the minimum distance. However as I went further west and started to pass the skerries the waves I was riding got somewhat steeper. It was now about 0830 and I think it could have been the tide had now turned and the skerries and shallows were diverting the flooding current to the north and onto the waves I was on. I keep a nervous eye ahead in case this current started to brake these monster waves and make them topple. Luckily I could not see too much white, but there was enough to make my mouth dry.

At the same time the wind increased from a force two up to a three. This was a north easterly wind and was going in the same direction of the waves, and me, and it caused the crests of some of the larger waves to get a bit ruffled.

Slowly but surely, I pulled myself along and started to cross the 5 km wide Sandfjord towards the high rocky headland on the west side, called Bispen. As I pulled away from the skerries and shallows, and the currents they created, the effect on the waves became less and less until they were just the big fast moving mounds of water again.

Sandfjord was quite a narrow fjord with steep cliffs on each side. Its’ end was some 7-8 km to the south and it was likely to be a large sandy beach judging by the terrain and name. However there would be very large surf to get through before one could land here and this would no doubt test my rolling skills. Indeed there was probably nowhere to land until the days’ revised destination of Mehamn. I had by this stage given up the idea of rounding Kinnarodden in this sea because if I got the tide here wrong the waves would be dangerous, especially if the wind increased as forecast.

Bispen headland was spectacular. There were steep cliffs which clearly showed the steep incline and folding of the geological strata. At the base of these cliffs was a huge rock formation which looked like a giant chess piece; – and Bispen is translated as Bishop.

There were many puffins here as there had been all day but I could not see where they could have been breeding. There was a grassy covered island, called Kamoya, ahead of the next headland and I assumed it was here, but when I reached it I found that the island was a black backed gulls nesting ground with many gulls standing erect on the grass.

As soon as I was through the gap between the headland and Kamoya island the sea started to calm down and the swell become much more predictable. I paddled now with the force three wind and the swell behind me and quickly cruised along the bare, grey rock strewn peninsula towards some shallow, grassy islands with skerries, and Mehamn. I went behind the skerries into quieter water and this was the first time I had been able to take my hands of the paddle all day. There were more gulls and fulmars nesting on the island and many hundreds of eider ducks bobbing about in the lee. I took some photos here which in no way show the state of the sea some 3 hours earlier.

After using the lee to have a pee I continued round a small headland and into a bay which was the harbour of Mehamn. It has no breakwater and is quite safe in all weathers except for a north westerly. Soon I was crossing the harbour and heading up to Vidars’ youth hostel and robuer. He came out onto the jetty to greet me with the delegates from a course he was hosting.

I dragged the boat up, got out of my dry suit and was served lunch. It was good to be back in Mehamn. I finished the ski here, started the cycle here and now am here with a kayak. The weather was definitely improving and the wind was only a force two and the sun was out. It made me feel a bit guilty staying, but the forecast said the wind would increase.

After lunch I took what I needed from the kayak and discovered that a half litre bottle of blackcurrant syrup had emptied itself in the small day hatch. This took an hour and many cold fingers to clean up. I then got the blog out of the way, had a shower and snooze.

Vidar had done some kayaking and was keen to accompany me round Kinnarodden. This could be an advantage because he knew the sea here like the back of his hand but it could be double trouble also. He suggested going at midnight because of the tide, before he left to do one of his many jobs which this time was to be the air traffic controller at the small airport. When he returns we will discuss it further.

It had been an exciting day and had certainly blown away the cobwebs I accumulated at Gamvik. It is just a shame I could not have taken more pictures when it was at its most impressive. This pretty much concludes the vaguely defined Osthavet (East Sea) coast of the Barents Sea between Vardo and Mehamn. The next stage round the northern peninsulas is the Nordishavet (North Ice Sea).

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It has been a strong wind all night and in the morning it continued to blow a good force six. There were frequent hail showers and these battered into the windows rattling them noisily. This run of windy weather was quite prolonged and relentless and I know the ocean will calm down again and the sun will return soon. Indeed it seems tomorrow June 2nd will be a good day but then the winds will start to blow again for the rest of the week.

I struggled to find much to do all day so went for a couple of walks around the town between showers. There were many houses in the town, at least 50, yet there did not seem to be much employment apart from the school, museum and the very small fishing operation. Apparently there were a lot of retired people who lived here and quite a few commuted to Mehamn to work there. None the less it seemed a close and tightly knit community,

As I wondered around the few streets I met a herd of reindeer that were doing the same and looking for some fodder in peoples unfenced gardens. The gardens were generally just rough lawns and nothing more. In one garden I saw my first wild flower of the year, a yellow primrose which must have blossomed in the last few days.

The museum was closed but they had two outside exhibits the first was a traditional large A frame used for hanging cod on to dry when Gamvik was a viable harbour and many boats landed their catch here. The other exhibit was the boat or pramma which was the boat used to shuttle goods and people from the quay to the Hurtigruten ferry as the quay was too small for the ferry. The pramma was in use up to 1990 when the ferry ceased to stop at Gamvik.

In the evening I went to see Frank who owned the house and lived nearby to pay him for the comfortable 4 nights. It was dangerous to live so comfortably as one could get used to it and procrastinate too much about weather. I would definitely be much keener to move on if I had been cooped up in a damp tent for 5 days.

It had been another somewhat tedious day. The weather window tomorrow was looking more and more secure however from about 0400 onwards for up to 12 hours before the force 6 returns.