Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 10km | Time 2hrs | Ascent 0m | Descent 0m

I did not wake until 1200. When I did my shoulders were sore. Indeed on the odd occasion through the night I had woken up with a bit of pain if I was laying the wrong way. I had estimated the high tide was at 1800 today and would start ebbing thereafter with a wonderful flow through the Kvalsund sound. Hopefully I would be carried along at a fair rate.

This gave me a few hours to do the blog from yesterday and wander around the village a bit. I got the blog out of the way first but could not publish it due to insufficient reception. It took a couple of hours.

I then wandered through the village. It had about 10 permanent houses and they were remarkably well kept for Finnmark. On the shore side of the crescent shaped road round the bay were a lot of fishing sheds, some with jetties and a few with drying cod. The cod drying here would just be for local use and the locals would fish to supplement other occupations. Under some nets there were maybe 1000 cod drying.

The sheds had all manner of fishing equipment and parts of old diesel engines lying around. Many had a trolley or sledge to drag the boats up the shingle shore with a wire winch operated by an old engine.

I spoke to one man about the tides through the sound. He rattled off instructions so complicated my eyes glazed over and like many men the instructions went in one ear and out the other. He did say that the currents and tides here tended to wash things into this fjord. Judging by the number of whale ribs and backbones around the village I assume old and sick whales ended up on the beaches here quite often.

I packed up the tent, tinkered with some equipment and the rudder and eventually set off at 1800 just as the tide started to recede. There were a lot of red billed terns in the bay to see me off. It also seemed some of the locals had made nesting trays for kittiwakes on their cod drying racks.

The wind was behind me and I made good speed into the fjord. I was hoping to meet the current soon which would carry me through the sound. I met the current soon enough but it was going the wrong way. It was flowing towards me and piling into the small waves I was riding. I could not believe it. My speed halved and I had to paddle hard to reach the town of Kvalsund on the other side of the Repparfjord. My speed was now just 3 km per hour.

Maybe I was in a large eddy or maybe the basin the other side of Kvalsund drained north instead of south. This basin did contain the large Altafjord and maybe this was partly empting through the sound and against me. It did not match what the old man had told me or my intuition. I felt cheated as I had expected an easy ride after yesterday’s effort.

Eventually I reached the other side and the town of Kvalsund. This was a green and lush place with fields basking in the sun and tidy red barns along the road. This was more the cultural Norway I was familiar with.

Kvalsund is the centre of a dispute concerning the Finnmarks Law. The reindeer herders claim a quarry here cannot be developed creating many hundreds of jobs because their reindeer would lose pastures. However the reindeer owners are willing to accept compensation for their loss. Most people perceive this loss to be irrelevant compared to the compensation demanded and attribute it to greed. However the reindeer owners have the law on their side and are using it. It is one of many instances I have heard about where the Finnmarks Law has been used to demand compensation by the Lapp reindeer owners and this has earned them scorn.

After passing Kvalsund I went under the bridge. The current here was definitely flowing north but not very strongly. However it certainly was not going to assist me. There are so many factors when trying to calculate the tidal flow here it is almost an art rather than science. I think my plan in the future is not to plan for it but just go. If the tide is against me it will eventually turn and if it is with me then I am lucky.

I was feeling quite tired and without the anticipated current to help me decided to have a short day and get an early night and try and curb my nocturnal habit. I would start early tomorrow and try and develop a routine instead of starting so late and finishing even later. It does matter because it is a lot colder at night and if I do pass a town then the shop or accommodation are all closed as everyone else is asleep.

Shortly after the bridge I spotted a pebble beach with a grassy strip and some fields above that. It was the tiny hamlet of Beritsjord. I decided this would do despite a very short day so far. Indeed it was hardly worth packing the tent. I landed here and by 2100 had the tent up.

I wrote up the blog and had supper and was ready to go to bed at 2300. A cookoo was singing in the birch trees nearby. It was nice to be back in countryside with trees again.

It had been a short day. Perhaps it was necessary to relax and try and reestablish a routine again after a lot of late nights where I did not have any evening to enjoy.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 9:51 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.