Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

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

I had a free day today to repair the kayak and clean equipment and cloths and check things over. I got up reasonably late and then started to clean the kayak of some of the sand which had accumulated in the holds and were abrading the dry bags.

I also went along to the shop to get tonight’s meal and also 4 days worth of food from the limited choice. The next half week was not going to be a gourmet experience even by my standards.

With the supplies in I returned to the workshop. There was a local there building a kayak of strip wood from drawings. The place had all the tools to do this. I got chatting to him and he seemed the island handyman who could turn his hand to most practical things. His name was William Pedersen and his son was around to help him with his kayak project.

William quickly offered to help me. I needed an extra pair of hands to do some of the jobs as it was just too difficult to hold a bolt inside the kayak and operate a screwdriver on the other side. Plus with his practical skills he was able to find solutions which I thought were impossible.

A washer and nut was attached to the bolt which held the back toggle in place. The washer and nut was omitted by the factory and the bolt had simply ripped its thread and come off. This was a difficult operation as the washer and nut had to be attached some 2 foot beyond arms reach. William glued the washer and nut onto a baton and extended down the stern hatch while I screwed and eventually got a bit of the nut.

Next were the rudder pedals. I dismantled the good job Bjorn in Tromso had done but the foam we used then had perished. We found some very firm foam with the texture of plastic and using the holes Bjorn made were able to tie wrap the shaped foam bits into place. The rudder worked wonderfully after that with almost 20mm of this hard foam on the surface of the control pedals.

Finally William and Bent helped me glue some sleeping mat on the footwell floor to help protect my heels from the hard surface. My heels had been giving me a bit of trouble despite the fact they were cushioned by the neoprene of my boots.

With all this done I rinsed off the drysuit which I had not used for a week but would not dry as it was encrusted in salt which attracted any dampness, and packed the food. Bent also showed me some hidden gems to visit on Vega tomorrow and photocopied some charts to help me navigate the maze of islands around here.

In the late afternoon the 1.4 size spraydeck arrived by express post from Oyvind in Asker and I was finally ready to set off again after the service. Williams’ help had been invaluable and the workshop and the tools at the Havnomaden Kajakksenter were perfect. I just could not have done these jobs on my own on a beach somewhere.

After supper in the evening I went down to the pub below where more locals and guests had gathered. It was another wonderful arty evening with great craic as the Irish would say. I would be sorry to leave the comfort and familiarity of this place but I am quite sure I will be back. I want to come back and explore more of the Helgelandskyst at a later date and this place is the spiritual home of kayaking in this wonderful area.
It was a useful day with good company. I was now ready to continue south with all the small niggling things which needed to be done completed.

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

I slept the best I had slept for a long time in a comfortable bed. The place I was staying was at the Havnomadens Kajakksenter on the archipelago called Husvaer. It was roughly half way on the Norwegian coast and it was to be a comfortable sanctuary for a couple of days.

The accommodation was very comfortable and the joint kitchen area was superbly equipped and well thought out. In addition to this the owners, Bent and Inge Skauen had done a loving job of decorating the place which they built nearly from scratch on the foundations of an old fish wharf. The place had a very nice vibe to it.

Not only was there this accommodation but there was also a kayak workshop where the Skauens made traditional kayaks of wood and also Greenland paddles. There was also another kayak store where there were some 20 kayaks for rent and use at the centre. I needed to do some repairs on my kayak and this place was the perfect dry tidy spacious facility.

The first I had to do today was to catch up with the blog from the last two days and other office work. I virtually set aside the whole day to do this with the odd break to go and shop and explore the island a little.

The shop was small and doubled as a meeting place and café. It sold everything from nails to milk. The island seemed very relaxed and lush and reminded me of the artistic, slightly Bohemian, relaxed place which Rodoy was.

This island only had a population of 55 but was connected to Brasoy with a bridge and this neighboring island also had a shop and similar population. Although these islands were connected one still needed a short ferry to get to the main island of Heroy, which in turn was connected to the mainland and other islands by ferry.

I bought food for the day and then returned to write more blog and emails. This took the rest of the afternoon. Meanwhile Bent Skauen was holding a rolling class with another instructor called Sigmund and some guests and locals. Everybody was using the Greenland paddles. Bent looked like he knew 20 or 30 different rolling techniques and was practicing them all with relaxed and automatic fluency.

In the evening the Kajakksenter prepared a wonderful fresh cod straight off a passing boat. I ate with 3 other guests as the place slowly filled up with locals. By 2030 the meal was over and the cook and Sigmund the kayak instructor produced guitars.

The rest of the evening was a rowdy sing along with 30 odd people joining in singing some folk songs and some more usual favorites. In between the songs there was a lot of chat. For me it usually focused on the island, Helgelandskyst and kayaking.

It had been a great day in a nice place with good company. The weight of the writing was off my shoulders and tomorrow I could concentrate on the kayak repairs in the workshop.

Distance 59km | Time 11.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I slept well and woke at 0800, which is when I got up. I had to make a phone call to Oyvind Jorfald to ask him to post a spraydeck up to a kayak centre in Husvaer called Havnomaden where I would be staying in a couple of days. The current neoprene spraydeck has stretched and is letting in water when waves break over it. Unfortunately the new spraydeck is also neoprene, which despite being a popular material for kayak spraydecks, is fundamentally flawed in that it is just not watertight.

With the phone calls out of the way I went for another walk on the island. The sheep were lazing in the shade by some heavily folded rocks on the edge of a beach. Most sheep in Norway are very tame as they are kept indoors in the winter and hand feed, often by the farm children. Each sheep is individually known by each farmer who on average owns 20 to 50. While they don’t have the same status as pets they are still cherished.

There were a few small trees on the island but is was mostly grass, growing on rock or growing on sand dunes. It was a wonderfully peaceful place on this still morning. I packed the kayak up slowly and after appreciating the island of Sandvaer all morning left at midday. Again I did not have any destination in mind other than southwards, but I did want to go round the west side of the island of Donna.

I left the main island of Sandvaer and paddled out of the white sandy bay through numerous islets and skerries. It was still but the wind was forecast to get up. The water was glassy and it was easy to spot an otter as it swum from one skerry to another. It rather surprising to see one here as I had always though otters needed fresh water to rinse their coat in occasionally and there seemed to be none out here.

Beyond the skerries I could see the island of Traena. It was one of the most classic of all the steeper islands with about 4 large steep rock clumps rising off the flat island mantle they sat on. It lay on the outside of the coast, beyond the puffin colony of Lovund, and although surrounded by protective vaer or clusters of skerries it was almost in the Atlantic.

Just as I was leaving Sandvaer there was a skerry without a lot of mackerel or red nibbed terns nesting on it. I went ashore here to investigate and to see how big the chicks were. To my surprise most were still in the eggs as they had been in Bergsfjord some three weeks ago. There were a couple of chicks looking very vulnerable in the rudimentary nests. There was also a duck there sitting on a down filled nest hidden in tall rockrose in which there were 6 green eggs. I left the island quite quickly so as not to disturb more than I had.

As I paddled south from Sandvaer I crossed a stretch of open water before I reached the northern tip of Donna. The wind was starting to increase the whole time on the crossing and it was at least a force four when I reached Donna island. On the crossing I had seen many puffins bobbing about in the waves, which were probably on a fishing trip from Lovund island some 20 km to the west. It was the first time I had passed by puffins with beaks full of small fish which they were obviously collecting for the young chicks in their burrows.

On reaching Donna island I did not really know what to do. I had lingered too long on Sandvaer to find a shop open somewhere. It looked like supper would be mashed potato and hot chocolate as this was all I had left plus a litre of water. There could be guesthouse to the south of Donna on the island of Heroy and there was likely to be a shop there tomorrow so I started to head down there.

The wind was now a force six and I was being blown along as a tremendous rate. While sitting still I was doing 5.5 km per hour and if I paddled this only increased to around 8 km per hour. In this wind one would normally expect big seas but due to all the skerries and the 20,000 odd islands around here the fetch was only about 5 km at the most so there was little opportunity for waves to build up.

Half way down Donna I stopped at Skaga for a stretch. I was quite wet and a bit cold due to the wind and leaking spraydeck. I did not fancy camping. Suddenly I had an idea to go all the way to Husvaer where I was planning to go tomorrow. It was about 25 km away. I phoned them to ask if it was OK to arrive around midnight. No problem Inge said.

I set of for theirs at 2000. With the strong wind behind me, the tide with me and extra vigour in my arms I made exceptional time. I was doing about 8 km per hour as I blasted down across the Skagafjord to Seloy. I reached it quickly. This seemed to be a busy little area and there were plenty of houses, cabins and a marina here. There seemed to be a café at the bridge for the yachting fraternity.

I went under the bridge and into an open basin between knobbly islands to the west of Heroy. There were quite a few houses here also and many with robuer, or fishing sheds, at the bottom of the garden where there were well used fishing boats. To get past these knobbly islands I had to make a slight detour as the new road to them used a causeway instead of bridges except for one bridged channel.

Once I was under this bridge there was a straight run across some reasonably open water for some 8 km to the island cluster of Husvaer. With the strong north wind of force six the waves did start to get larger towards the end with masses of water washing over the decks and dribbling through onto my legs. Soon however I was in the shelter of the Husvaer archipelago and being blown down channels with just ripples again.

I found the place I was staying quite easily which is a surprise give the complexity of the landscape here where one can get lost among the islands. Usually I have a 1:400,000 road map and the fiddly small screen on a GPS to go by which has been fine up to now, but for Helgelandskyst the 1:50000 maps are really necessary to get the most out of the area. I arrived at 2330.

I had reached a kayak center called Havnomaden in Husvaer where I would stay two days. It was run by Bent and Inge Skauen. I had got a tip on this place from Jon who I paddled with in Varangerfjord in the first week of this kayak trip. I received a very warm welcome, and lovely meal and was shown an extremely comfortable and nice room and joint area where other kayakers cooked and hung out. There were a few others staying. After a warming shower I crashed out at 0100 in what felt like home.

It had been a long day with a very gentle tranquil start on an island paradise finishing up with a wet windy kayak where I got soaked from waves and spray but ended in a really nice place to warm up and recuperate again. There was also a stunning sunset with the island of Donna silhouetted in orange.

Distance 46km | Time 10.5hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I woke up in the shade of the huge elm tree under which I was camped at the edge of the beach on another sunny day. I had to open up the tent before it started to cook me, despite being partly in the shade. I eventually got up around 0900 and lazed around on the grass while having breakfast. The ladies from the other tent soon got up and we chatted for a good hour while I packed and got ready.

I had no plan were I was going when I left the bay where the beach was at 1130. Rodoy was so nice an island with such a nice atmosphere I wanted to visit others which were hopefully the same. A few people had mentioned Hestmon as being a nice place so I decided to go over there.

It was a beautiful paddle between the islands of Flatoya, Gyeroya and over to Sundoya. The latter had a few old homesteads and beaches on it down the east side. I stopped and chatted with someone here. He said there was little on Hestmon but the best scenery was on the west side. I took his advice and paddled over. I was half thinking about paddling over to Lovund so this suited my plans.

Lovund was a small steep island with a larger village on it. This clump of rock was also a puffin colony and one of the most important ones in Norway. It had a shop, guesthouse and café and according to everybody I spoke to a very good vibe.

The west side of Hestmon did not have any beaches at all really but there was a nice on the north side of the island. As I paddled down the west side of Hestmon the forecast wind increased quickly and it was up to a force five and from the north. Much of this was maybe due to wind stream being accelerated round the huge cliffs on Hestmon. On the south west side of Hestmon on the cliffs there looked like there was a large cave at the foot of the cliffs.

The wind was too strong to consider paddling over to Lovund. Indeed I was getting blown along at over 5 km per hour just sitting still so I decided to head south passing to the west of the Kvaroy islands and make for Luroy. It was a fast crossing with the wind behind me and I was at Luroy before I knew it.

The wind was still behind me as I paddled down a sandy channel between skerries past the hamlet of Hagen and to the village of Luroy itself under the steep mountains in the centre of the island.

This landscape here is really quite remarkable. There are either flat skerries and islands, which rarely exceed 50 metres in height, or huge steep clumps of rock resting on these flat islands and these generally rise steeply to between 500 and 1000 metres. I cannot explain how this came about geologically. To suggest it is the old basement rock, which lies around sea level off the Helgeland coast, with the steep clumps being remnants of un-eroded rock on top of it is guesswork.

Luroy seemed very nice and quiet but with the wind behind me I was past the village in a bay before I had time to react. There were apparently simple rooms and a café here. My food stocks were suddenly very low and I had only 2 litres of water so I needed supplies for the night.

I paddled and was blown south to where Luroy met Onoy. There was apparently a shop and guesthouse here. I paddled into the convoluted bay and made for the quay area where I landed. There was a shop here but it had closed a few hours ago and there was no accommodation. That was apparently on Luroy from where I had just come and it would mean paddling some 3 km back into the wind. There was a café some 2 km to the west of Onoy where there might be rooms also but it was probably full, the kids I asked said.

I paddled towards the café down a beautiful narrow sound with quaint leisure cabins and quirky boatsheds on each side until I arrived at a slightly industrial area with a couple of large warehouses of building materials, breakwaters, fishing boat repair yards, a concrete quay and a grass roofed café hiding amongst it all.

The kids were right the rooms were all taken. I decided to eat and then head off in search of a campsite. The café was not so friendly but the food was fantastic. The days dish was a kind of Whale meat stroganoff. I had that in sitting in my dripping clothes covered in salt marks in the restaurant full of more refined people from the yachting fraternity.

After supper I set off at 2000 in search of a place to camp. There was nothing on Onoy so I continued out to Sandvaer. I thought with a name like this there must be a beach on it. I was about an hour’s paddle southwards. A vaer is a cluster of flattish islands in a group, and there are many such vaer or clusters on the Helgelandskyst.

I paddled past Kvitvaer, which looked very nice with a few beaches and reached Sandvaer. True to its name there were a lot of beaches in all directions. I landed at one on the west. It was absolutely idyllic. Perhaps the most beautiful place I had been so far. By 2200 I had the tent up and could relax in the evening sun. I could not be bothered with the blog and went for a walk instead as the wind had vanished. The sun for the first time in weeks dipped below the horizon at midnight as I was now below the Arctic Circle. Hestmon some 20 km to the north was on the Arctic Circle.

Sandvaer was a main island off about a square km surrounded by many smaller islets and skerries. The beach I was on was composed of white sand from smashed coral and pulverized shells. A beach on the south side cut right through the island and met my beach on a white sandy saddle between two grassy knolls. There were lots of goose droppings on the grass, but maybe they had now migrated further north to breed. The island was a nature reserve.

There were some 20 sheep and their lambs on the island. They had obviously been placed here by a farmer so they could roam free from predators and enjoy the fresh grass for the summer before they were rounded up in September and taken back to the farm. It looked like they were having an easy time wandering about this flat grassy island in the summer weather.

It had been an exploratory nomadic day. I had paddled quite far but not as the crow flies. It had been interesting to see other places but I was a bit disappointed by Hestmon and Onoy but had liked Luroy and was totally enchanted by the beauty of Sandvaer, it was everything I imagined I would find on the Helgelandskyst and more.

Distance 36km | Time 8hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I got up very early at 0400 and packed up the kayak in the still morning. I had never noticed midges, or knot, before in Norway but they were out in force this morning rising from the grass. They were nothing in comparison to the numbers found in Scotland but irritating none the less.

As I packed the kayak an otter shuffled along the beach just in front of me. Its gait seemed awkward on land compared to the grace otter’s display in the water. It had gone before I got to the camera.

I pushed off at 0600 and had only taken a few strokes when I noticed a sea eagle just 100 yards away. It had seen me and was unusually confident. Normally they fly off at once. This one flew off but just to another skerry on the other side some 100 yards away also. I watched it, and it watched me, for a good 10 minutes.

Initially I had to cross the fjord to the west end of Meloy island. It was called a fjord on the map, but it was not the classic strip of water between steep sided mountains but rather an open basin studded with many flat rocky islands and islets. One of the clusters of islands was Gasvaer and it had a house on it. These archipelagoes were a paradise for ducks and there were many rafts of a few mothers looking after a collective batch of small ducklings.

I passed Meloy and continued to the west end of the island south of it which was Amoya. Again there were masses of small islands. These islands were rockier and more ice scraped than I had imagined. There were also numerous bays with white beaches and tall green grass growing in the sand above the high tide mark. I had lunch on one of them as the tide came in and a curlew circled above sounding a wide variety of calls with its long curved beak.

To the east of these flattish archipelagos was the dramatic mainland with its steep mountains rising up from the more classic fjords. In most places these mountains rose very steeply for some 1000 metres.

South of Amoya I looked towards the mainland and noticed a vast glacier, more of an icecap really with glaciers descending from this smooth white dome. This was Svartisen on of the largest icecaps in Norway. Some of the glaciers descending from this ice cap nearly reached the sea at the end of the fjords, and 250 years ago during the mini ice age probably did.

I paddled over to the next peninsula southwards and then crossed over the open Rodoyfjord to Rodoy island. There was a slight tide against me and a small wind from the side so I made slow time in crossing over to Rosoya on the north east tip of Rodoy.

There were a few quiet channels between Rosoya and Rodoy with many rocky shorelines but also the occasional beach. This continued all the way down the east side of Rodoy until I got to the village at the south end of the island.

There was a large beach here with great camping above it. It also looked quite central so I made for it. The beach was called Prestegardsfjaere. Around the beach the grass was cut and there were some large mature deciduous trees. Among the trees was a large, traditional, old white house which must have been the priests once. There were already a couple of ladies camping on this beach.

I landed at 1400 and had the tent up soon afterwards. I then went for a walk around the village. There were 180 people who lived on the island, mostly in the village. There was also a shop and a small café/pub. In addition to this some 2 km out of the village was a beautiful old farm building converted to a guest house called Klokkegarden. There was a band playing here practicing for a festival soon on a neighboring island of Traena.

Rodoy had a very relaxed, artistic rural vibe to it. The few holiday makers who came here would come to relax and think rather than seek excitement.

In the evening on the way back to the tent I stopped and had a look in the church. It was being repaired. The interior was light and simple. It was very large and had seating for perhaps 500. There were two enormous wood ovens which might just heat the place in winter. The church must have been at the heart of the community once but no longer now.

It had been a good day and it was nice to arrive at Rodoy which was more what I expected Helgelandskysten to be like, lush, relaxed and quirky.