Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

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.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 6:39 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.